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IFC’s regional VP for Africa Sergio Pimenta stated that the investments of IFC in Nigeria are valued at USD 2 bn and spread across various sectors of the economy. He was recently speaking at the BoI-IFC Conference on Empowering Futures in Lagos, where stakeholders gathered to develop ideas and initiatives to improve access to finance, export credit, partial credit guarantees, and other risk-sharing financing structures.
He further said that IFC’s investment portfolio in Nigeria was the second largest in Africa. According to Pimenta, the corporation’s investments in the country were concentrated across trade finance, manufacturing, financial markets, and infrastructure. In addition, IFC’s work boosts universal energy access and green energy adoption, fosters increased access to finance for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises through financial intermediaries, supports agribusiness and manufacturing to enhance food security, meets domestic needs, and grows export and foster digitisation.
The Nigerian financial sector has a key role to play in supporting trade, financial inclusion, and access to finance for MSMEs. Pimenta noted that to further strengthen its financial infrastructure, Nigeria had recently embarked on legislative reforms to catalyse institutional and behavioural change among formal lenders and borrowers across the country. What is equally essential to growing Nigeria’s economic potential is industrialisation. Of course, Nigeria, like many countries, faces multiple challenges. These include global economic uncertainties, infrastructure constraints, a lack of economic diversity, and trade and financial sector issues such as foreign exchange shortages, and limited access to finance.
The Managing Director of the Bank of Industry, Nigeria Dr Olasupo Olasuyi, announced a partnership between the development banks to improve access to finance and export credit to boost the country’s industrialisation drive. He said that this conference is very important and timely, which convenes leaders from the financial sector and other critical sectors of the economy to discuss how to advance Nigeria’s industrial sector.
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The Nigerian Industrial Development Bank– which later became BoI – was set up in 1964 by the Federal Government in partnership with the IFC. The IFC is an arm of the World Bank Group focused on unlocking private investment, and creating markets and opportunities where they are needed most.
