By Enyichukwu Enemanna
At the ongoing World Economic Forum (WEF), the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation has advised Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria to be deliberate in its quest for global investors and relocation of supply chains to the West African nation as an opportunity to create new jobs, enhance manufacturing, and reduce dependence on imported items.
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former Nigeria’s Finance Minister who spoke on a clip posted by GLAZIA on its X handle during a discussion themed “From Scale to Capital: Financing Nigeria’s Role as Africa’s Digital Trade and Infrastructure Anchor,” at the Nigeria House in Davos, Switzerland said Nigeria must take advantage of the global supply chain diversification.
Escalating geopolitical tension between two dominant economies, China and the United States has increased supply chain diversification, with firms and nations adopting “China+1” sourcing strategies to reduce reliance on single-country supply source.
Also, Washington’s restrictions and trade tariffs have incentivised companies to reconsider reliance on dominant suppliers, leading to the relocation or diversification of production hubs.
The WTO chief says Nigeria stands to gain from these disruptions by scouting for a share of global supply chains, a breakthrough that would only come through an aggressive marketing of the country to prospective investors.
She said, “As you said, some good reforms are being pursued right now. I think they need to yield to job creation. That was what I said to His Excellency—that we need to move from stabilisation to job creation, because that is where we are lacking. It is not going to be overnight, but they are moving in the right direction. What I think they need to do is map where the opportunities are.
“What I would like to see is a continued effort to attract investment into the country, because there is an opportunity now to attract these supply chains. If there is one thing I would say, it is that everything we can do to showcase Nigeria as a country worthy of investment is what we should be doing.
“And we should deliberately have strategies to go after those investments and investors—to go to China, the US, whatever it takes—to come and invest in our country. As companies seek to diversify supply chains, a lot of that movement is still within Asia. Diversification is moving from China but still within Asia, and India is another destination. We should attract a sizeable chunk of that. I’m not saying all.
“Let’s build solar panels in Nigeria. We are importing, but we can also manufacture. We have the renewable capacity. In fashion, let them come to invest. Every time I buy a piece of wax (textile), I check to see where it’s made. Let’s attract investment to make it at home rather than elsewhere. Many of the shiny new textiles we are wearing now are not made in Nigeria; a lot of them are imported.”
Okonjo-Iweala further highlighted opportunities in the pharmaceutical sector, saying, “Pharmaceuticals—there is a chance there as well. These are some of the supply chains I would be attracting.”
