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Nigeria Seeks To Boost Investment In Agriculture, Diversify Economy

Nigeria Seeks To Boost Investment In Agriculture, Diversify Economy

From Fox Business.

Major local Nigerian and foreign businesses are investing in Nigeria as part of the country’s efforts to boost agriculture and diversify Nigeria’s economy away from oil and gas.

Nigeria’s agriculture ministry has attracted $8 billion in foreign investment and aims to increase that to more than $10 billion by 2015, the country’s minister of agriculture said.

Akinwumi Adesina told The Wall Street Journal that the country is seeking to boost investment in agriculture as part of a drive to diversify Nigeria’s economy away from oil and gas, and to create more jobs and food security in the process.

Indonesian fertilizer company Indorama will invest $2.5 billion in new fertilizer plants,  Adesina said on a visit to South Africa for the World Economic Forum on Africa. Dangote Group, run by Africa’s richest man, Nigerian Aliko Dangote, is investing $3.5 billion in what Adesina says will be Africa’s biggest fertilizer plant.

Major multinational agri-businesses are also moving in. Two weeks agao, the government approved a plan by Cargill Inc. to use cassava starch to make a sweetener that will be sold to Coca-Cola and Heineken, Mr. Adesina said.

He added agri-business company Syngenta will set up an office in Nigeria in June and there has also been interest from seed companies Monsanto and DuPont.

Read more at Fox Business.