The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said Nigeria must deliberately position itself to attract global investors and relocating supply chains in order to create jobs, deepen manufacturing and reduce import dependence.
Okonjo-Iweala made the remarks on Wednesday at the Nigeria House during the ongoing World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, while speaking at a discussion titled “From Scale to Capital: Financing Nigeria’s Role as Africa’s Digital Trade and Infrastructure Anchor.”
She said ongoing disruptions in global supply chains present a window of opportunity for Nigeria to secure a share of international manufacturing and production networks, provided the country adopts a focused and aggressive investment strategy.
According to her, current economic reforms must go beyond stabilisation and translate into tangible job creation, stressing the need for Nigeria to deliberately identify sectors where it has competitive advantages and channel investments into them.
“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. 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,” she said.
The WTO chief noted that Nigeria must actively court investors from major economies such as China and the United States rather than wait passively, as global firms increasingly seek to diversify supply chains.
She observed that although much of the current diversification remains within Asia, including China and India, Nigeria has the potential to attract a sizeable share if it positions itself effectively.
Okonjo-Iweala added that successfully capturing part of the shifting global supply chains would help boost industrial growth, expand exports and reduce Nigeria’s dependence on imports.