President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, ‘has assured Captains of Saudi Arabian Industry and Arab prospective investors that all bottlenecks in Nigeria will be crushed and that their funds will come in and go out without hindrance.
Tinubu, who stated this yesterday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at the ‘Nigeria-Saudi Investment Roundtable, began his deliberation by making clear that with his team in place, every negative perception or notion about what Nigeria has represented in the past with respect to the ease-of-doing business, monetary policy, and trade cooperation is no longer applicable now and in the future of Africas largest economy, which he firmly declared is open for business.
I believe in this team that I have brought from Nigeria. When I took office, I declared the immediate commencement of bold and fundamental economic reforms. We have executed them, and we sustain the reform process. Today, I declare that the red tape is gone!
I believe in the full application of free market economics. Your money will flow easily in and easily out. The arbitrage around our nations old foreign exchange policy regime and the corruption that was associated with it is also gone!
We took on those bold endeavours from day one in preparation for serious investors like you seated here. The greatest opportunity for any entity to prosper lies in its human capital. My team is prepared. We can produce. Our market is full of Nigerian youths who are brilliant, highly educated, industrious, and passionate about innovation and engagement with world-class services.
The navigation of the ship of our great nation lies in the membership seated here. We are ready to answer all of your questions directly, even into this night if need be. The sky is not just the limit, but it is the destination for our two countries and peoples, the Nigerian President confidently affirmed.
In his remarks, Saudi Arabias Trade and Investment Minister, Kahlid el-Falih, noted the passion and candid expression of the Nigerian leader, saying that after listening to the President speak from his heart without any written remarks about what is possible between the two nations, Nigerians can expect that the Saudi investment community will respond not in words alone, but with substantial new investment across several sectors of the Nigerian economy.
On his part, Saudi Arabias Commerce Minister, Majid bin-Abdullah Al Qasabi, previewed how Saudi Arabia can further contribute to the soft infrastructural reforms needed to unlock game-changing quantum of foreign direct investment in Nigeria.
We have signed an agreement with the World Economic Forum on the reform of the services sector in Africa. In developed economies, the services sector contributes enormously to GDP. But in the developing world, we tend to focus on goods. So, we would like to make Nigeria the pilot country in this agreement with WEF, to study Nigerias service challenges to make it seamless and make the supply chains across sectors streamlined and raised to international standard to enhance Nigerias economic and investment viability over the long-term, he stated.
