Despite poor infrastructure, Agbara beats Apapa, Ikeja, others with N385.9bn investment

Although roads network starting from Badagry, Lagos State end of Agbara-Igbesa-Atan Ota expressway, which is currently in a bad shape, responsible for uncountable number of fallen trucks and containers as well as losses of man hours, Agbara/Igbesa/Ota industrial estates in Ogun State attracted N385.9 billion new investment in less than two years, BusinessDay has learnt.

According to a source, who analysed investment statistics released by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), which disclosed that N643.2 billion was invested in Ogun State between January 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015, in manufacturing and real estate, 60 percent of the total investment was, during the period under review, domiciled in Agbara/Igbesa/Ota axis.

The source, who is chairman of a group of companies in axis and member of MAN, said out of N514.87billion and N128.3 billion invested in Ogun State in 2014 and the first half of 2015, respectively, N385.9 billion (N308.9bn in 2014 and N76.98bn in H1, 2015) was domiciled in Agbara/Igbesa/Ota axis, which represents 60 percent of the total investment within the period.

The figures however show that Agbara/Igbesa/Ota industrial estate share of investment year-on-year statistics was 75.5 percent when compared with Apapa 20.7 percent and Ikeja 3.6 percent in 2014, and was 72.2 percent in first half of the year 2015, while Ikeja got 20.4 percent and Apapa 7 percent within the year under review, leaving Agbara/Igbesa/Ota industrial estates as the biggest industrial hub in Nigeria.

Speaking on the rate of investment coming to Agbara/Igbesa/Ota industrial axis of Nigeria, Tunji Giwa, customs officer in charge of Ogun Guangdong Free Trade Zone, said the axis would have been the nation’s cash cow and largest industrial hub in West Africa if not for the decaying road infrastructure responsible for some setbacks in production.

Giwa, who disclosed that Nigeria Customs Service generated N18.8 million from excise duty in the Free Trade Zone alone between January and February, condemned bad condition of roads in the axis, especially Agbara-Igbesa-Atan Ota expressway, which he described as one of the most-valuable industrial roads where haulage of raw materials and finished goods was carried out every minute.

“I stand bold to surmise that Ogun Guangdong FTZ is one of the fastest growing zones in the country, despite some teething challenges the zone is grapping with. Numberless containers have fallen along the road while coming to the zone, our vehicles, on many occasions, have got stuck in the middle of the road often flooded with water and mud during rainy season.

“This and sundry setbacks militate against the full utilisation of the opportunities/potentials the zone offers prospective investors,” he said.

Also, a senior investment banker from Access Bank plc, who does not want his name in print, told BusinessDay that “what Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State needs to do on Agbara-Igbesa-Atan Ota expressway is to declare state of emergency and should give an excuse that the road belongs to Federal Government,” saying the governor should boost investors’ morale.

He said Governor Amosun should not wait for the state investors’ forum coming up later in the year before he could converge all the investors operating in the state since such a time might be too long, saying: “What the investors need now is the governor to come over here (Agbara) and discuss modalities of operation, how he intends to upgrade infrastructure.

“He should know that huge investment can still come to Agbara if he can build confidence of existing investors in Agbara and the entire industrial estates of the state. Fine, he is doing a lot on land rebates, land title documents, against multiple taxation, fairly good security outfit, but he needs to do more on roads and other infrastructure in industrial estates like Agbara.”

Meanwhile, BusinessDay has gathered that new investment, focusing on production of glass bottle, blown film beverage packaging as well as pharmaceutical and drug production plants worth about N416 billion may have been secured and domiciled in Agbara and Guangdong Free Trade Zone in Igbesa in the first quarter of the year 2016.

Nampak Bevcan Packaging, one of the leading packaging companies in sub-Saharan African, has begun expansion of its packaging production lines in OPIC Industrial Estate, Agbara, with $300 million (N96bn), while a group of Xi’an investors from Shaaxi Pharmaceuticals in the Republic of China, has acquired 1,000 hectares for construction of hi-tech pharmaceutical park worth $1 billion (N320bn).