Dr. Badewa Adejugbe-Williams, Chairman/Cordinator of the Nigeria Diaspora Investment Summit (NDIS), says the summit has become recognised vista for attraction of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the Nigerian economy.
Adejugbe-Williams said this at opening of the 5th edition of NDIS’s forum on Tuesday in Abuja.
The event holding at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, wil be rounded off on Thursday, has as its Theme: Optimising Investment Opportunities for National Development.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja reports that the event, is organised by the Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM).
Adejugbe-Williams, who acknowledged and described the Nigerians in the Diaspora contributions to the country’s economy as enormous, attributed it to the collective efforts of the Chairman of NiDCOM, Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa and the Nigeria Diaspora Summit Initiative (NDSI),
“It began in 2018 with the aim of exposing the Diaspora to investment opportunities in Nigeria, thus attracting Diaspora investment into the country.
“To achieve this, a lot was channelled into structuring the NDIS as a platform where diaspora investors, credible business owners, notable sponsors and partners.
“As well as government agencies could interact to explore investment opportunities and make business deals for the economic growth of our motherland.”
She quoted the Vice President at last year’s Summit, as saying ”NDIS has grown to be recognised as a surest platform for attracting foreign direct investment.
“This is very evident in the growing number of participants at NDIS and the large number of success stories that have so far been recorded at the Summit.
“The Summit started with a recorded participation of 400 participants in 2018 and 700 participants in 2019.
“In 2020 however, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the summit was held virtually with 1000 participants joining both virtually and physically.”
The NDIS Chairman added that “seeing the opportunities attached to the hybrid events, the 2021 summit was held as a hybrid event with 3000 participants both virtually and physically.
“The success stories recorded from past summits, corroborates the Vice President’s attestation.
“Worthy of note of these success stories are two tech businesses that were selected to showcase their products at the Dubai 2022 Fair as a result of their pitches at the Summit.
” Similarly, the Ondo State Development and Investment Promotion Agency (ONDIPA) received a number of expressions of interest in the international distribution and marketing of their chocolates at the last Summit.”
