By Pascal Oparada
Nigeria’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, is selling the country to potential investors in Germany. He said the country remains investors’ delight during the Nigeria-German Investment Dialogue in Berlin, Germany on Monday.
Consumer spending in Africa was $1.4 trillion by 2015, with Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa accounting for more than half of that total, the vice president said.
According to him substantial percentage of the world’s arable land is in Africa and in Nigeria in particular.
“With a substantial percentage of the world’s arable land and over half of that uncultivated, it is becoming clearer that the world will be looking to Africa, and Nigeria in particular, as its food basket,” he said through his tweeter page.
The vice president believes there is increasing economic opportunities in Nigeria because of deliberate actions on the part of the government to diversify the economy and improve the business environment.
Nigeria is Germany’s second biggest trade partner in Africa, hence Germany being a significant exporter to Nigeria with estimated $1 billion turnover annually.
“This is good, but we must agree that there is a scope for even bigger collaboration given that Nigeria’s GDP is close to $500billion,” Osinbajo said.
According to the vice president, agriculture presents one of the biggest investment opportunities in the country. He said Nigeria produces a total of 10 million metric tones of paddy rice annually. Nigeria’s is only importing two per cent of rice consumption now, Osinbajo explained.