Buhari, NNPC GMD, Others Woo Investors From Spain Into Nigeria’s Economy

President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday urged investors from Spain to take advantage of the huge potentials in Nigeria by investing in the country’s economy.

Buhari said this during the Nigeria-Spain business forum, which was also attended by the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, Mele Kyari; the Chairman of NNPC Ltd, Margery Okadigbo; the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment Niyi Adebayo; and the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission.

The forum was also attended by the Director-General of the Nigerian Automotive Design and Development Council, Jelani Aliyu; the Managing Director of the Oil and Gas Free Trade Zones Authority Umana Umana and the Director-General of the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency Inuwa Abdulahi.

The President in his opening remarks said the forum has provided an excellent platform to express, establish and strengthen business relationships between both countries.

He called for increase in trade relations between Nigeria and Spain, stating that there are unexplored areas that could be leveraged on to boost trade.

According to him, Nigeria’s export to Spain stood at a $4.8bn in 2020 while Spain export to Nigeria rose from $97.2m in 1995 to $572m in 2020.

He added, “A lot more can be done in increasing the volume of trade and today we have a good opportunity to explore this.

“It is currently a challenging time for the global economy, but I have always had the strong convictions that there’s no crisis without an accompanying opportunity and solution.”

Kyari who also spoke at the business forum commended the government of Spain for being a good trading partner to Nigeria particularly in the area of oil and gas.

He said that 26 per cent of all Liquified Natural Gas produced in Nigeria ends up in Spain, while 14 per cent of all crude oil produced in Nigeria is shipped to the country.

He said, “So clearly for us as business, it’s an important market for my company and we are very happy and we appreciate what you have done for us. But more than that, we also know that the world we live today needs energy.

“It will be needed tomorrow in any form, including the IT people, the automobile people, everybody will need energy to run the machines, run our homes, run our bakeries and everything that we do. We know that energy transition is real, we know that net zero by 2050, 2060 is real.

“But it doesn’t mean zero hydro-carbon in 2050 or 2060. It means that you are going to have cleaner use of hydro carbon, and have fossil fuels that can be converted to better use, and it starts today.

“It starts with business, so your investors will see where their money can come out from, so when they invest, they must see that they can recover their cost and make magic profits from it. And that’s the perfect opportunity we have today, in our country.

“Our country has declared that this is the decade of gas, the world has accepted that gas is the transition fuel and it will be there after 2050, it’s not going to go away.

“What is said is that it’s going to have cleaner use. In our country today, we have the perfect environment, we have a legislation that have clearly created a commercial national oil company, our company will be unveiled by our President on the 19th of July.”

In his speech, the Trade Minister said as a country, Nigeria will work towards increasing its volume of trade with Spain, even as Spain is partly one of Nigeria’s strongest European Union trading partner.

He said, “The majority of our bilateral trade is how they grow stronger in the oil and gas industry. I’ll like to strengthen our relationship. But you know, Nigeria’s is the largest part of Africa continent, in terms of both populations and economy, we can also confidently say that Nigeria is by far the most patriotic investment destination in Africa today.

“I am very proud to be called a Nigerian, to this extension it’s backed by strong economic fundamentals.

“We will become the first largest national market in the world based on head count by the year 2050. Nigeria also possesses an attractive demographic profile.