The Nigeria Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) has said it is championing the re-negotiation of the 2016 new model bilateral treaty which will see both local and foreign investors investing in the country.
This of course will be for a long term investment
The Executive Secretary, NIPC, Yewande Sadiku said in Abuja that the re-negotiation of these agreements was designed to determine the kind of investors that look at Nigeria.
NIPC during its research came up with parameters that are important for achieving development goals.
These include parameters responsible and inclusive, which of course are the sort of long term investment that the NIPC wants for the country.
According to her, they took at twenty one out of the twenty nine bilateral treaties that Nigeria has signed.
“What we found in that review we thought should be subject to some validation. Validation by members of Nigerians by international investment agreement team but also validation by people who know this things much better than we do, so we reached out to AUCTAD and World Bank for support with validation.
“The validation process is now complete and the next stage for us is that in a country by country basis, from A to U there are country names that were disguised simply because the process has not yet been completed.
“Seventeen out of the twenty one agreement, eighty one percent of the agreement scored less than ten over twenty, in our view those agreement generally need to be re-negotiated because they don’t sufficiently protect Nigeria’s interest, they give investor rights but do not tie any obligations to those rights.’’
One of the agreements, she said scored ten over twenty and three of the agreement scored fourteen over twenty.
“On the re-negotiation of the agreement we intend to do on the basis of 2016 new model bilateral investment treaty that Nigeria has and that and NIPC led in putting together.”
She added that, In the context of promoting investment we are very particular in getting Nigerians to invest in their own country, but we know like all countries that it is also important to get foreign investors to invest in the country. The most developed countries in the world are still looking for investors in their countries.
Nigeria should do its part by proactively promoting foreign investors as we should promote domestic direct investment.
Before we can properly ensure that we in the right part it is important to look where Nigeria has signed. This agreement does not necessarily guarantee you will get investment from these countries, but it gives investors from these countries some comfort.
