President Muhammadu Buhari has said that the federal government is about to establish a new bank, Development Bank of Nigeria.
While addressing the German-Nigeria
Business Forum in Berlin, Buhari said that the setup of such bank would
reinforce the government’s economic diversification program.
He said when the bank is fully
operational, would boost the establishment of small and medium
enterprises in the country, by boosting their access to finance.
“Our ambitions of creating a diversified
and inclusive economy in Nigeria can only be achieved by having a mix
of small, medium and large businesses.
“This is why we worked with the German
development agency, KFW, in designing the Development Bank of Nigeria
which will support the small and medium size enterprises both
financially and technically to ensure they take their rightful place in
the industrialization value chain.
“I am pleased to announce that
Development Bank of Nigeria will be taking off soon and should be a game
changer in our economic diversification plans,” he said.
Announcing that the Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI), from Germany, into Nigeria, as modest, he also urged
prospective investors at the gathering to go beyond making known their
interest in investing to making binding commitments for trade,
investments and industry in the key priority sectors of agriculture,
infrastructure, solid mineral and digital economy.
He said that Nigeria, despite recording a
trade volume of 2.96 billion dollars with Germany in 2015, still had
unexploited areas and the space to diversify its exports to Germany and
increase overall trade volumes.
The president also explained that trade
relations between both countries primary take the shape of oil and gas
exports from Nigeria, machinery, vehicle parts, telecommunications
technology and chemical products in the other direction.
0 comments:
Post a Comment