NIPC attracts $90million from Japan

The diversification policy of the Federal Government may have begun to receive a boost as the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) has concluded arrangements to attract investments worth $90 million from Japan into the Agricultural Sector..
The investment is the productions and sales of nutritious soya beans and sorghum flour and their processed products in Nigeria. Toshoku Company Limited of Japan is the Company that is already seeking for over five million hectares of lands to grow both soya beans and sorghum before processing them into flour and exporting them outside the country.

The Acting Executive Secretary of the Commission, Ladi Katagum while receiving the president of the Company, Zentaro Iwamoto, on Wednesday, explained how she was able to convince the company to consider Nigeria as the preferred investment destination in Africa and establish their business in spite of fears expressed by them on the security situation in the country.

She said the coming of the Company into the Nigerian economy to invest in the agric sector is very timely as it is line with the diversification policy of the Federal Government which the commission is pursuing with vigor for its realisation. She maintained that the commission will do everything possible to ensure that the multi-million dollar project is realised within the shortest possible time.

The NIPC chief executive assured the Japanese Investor that the commission will work with state governments to ensure that the required farm lands to grow the soya beans and sorghum are made available, “as the commission has already began consultations with state governments”, stressing that their investments will be secured in the country as the Federal Government has reduced the issue of insecurity to its barest minimum.

Earlier, the President of Toshoku Company Limited of Japan, Zentaro Iwamoto expressed the readiness of his company to establish a presence in Nigeria by growing large hectares of soya beans and sorghum and process produce into flour and for export.

Iwamoto who displayed some breads, biscuits and doughnuts that his company produced from sorghum in Japan, explained that from the factory that will be established in Nigeria, they are expected to produce high quality soya beans flour of 15, 000 tons per year and sorghum of 84, 000 tons per year and produce soya beans and sorghum flours such as bread, confectionaries, cakes and beverages.

He said the investment which is worth $90 million will be 70 percent funded by his company while 30 per cent will be funded by government or the private sector. Already, some state governments are competing to produce the farm lands to grow the soya beans and sorghum and the sitting of the multi- million dollar factory.

Harrison Edeh