‘Nigeria Needs Stable Economy to Attract Foreign Investment’

The Managing Director, Canon Central and North Africa (CCNA), Mr. Roman Trodthandi has emphasised the need for Nigeria to have a stable and reliable economy that will boost investor confidence in the country.

Trodthandi, who gave the advice during an interview with THISDAY, at the CABSAT 2018 technology conference and exhibition, which held in Dubai, revealed that most foreign investors had loved to invest their money in Nigeria because of her large population, and the business opportunities that are open to them in several sectors of the Nigerian economy, but explained that the investors are skeptical to do so because of the instability in the country’s currency, with regard to its fluctuating exchange rates.

“Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa and the fastest growing telecoms market in the world because of its large population and untapped business opportunities, but no investor will want to invest his or her money in an unstable economy, a situation that calls for an urgent need for the Nigeria government to rise to its responsibilities and address the situation that is adversely affecting business growth and development in the country,” Trodthandi said.

Citing the issue of recession, which he said the federal government was able to nip in the bud, he explained that such economic situation could scare investors, but insisted that instability of a country’s currency could be more devastating to investors who desire long business plan that is unhindered by the fluctuations of a country’s currency exchange rate.

Speaking on Canon’s investment in Nigeria, Trodthandi said the management of Canon is interested in the Nigerian market because of its huge population and the business opportunities therein. According to him Canon is interested in developing the African market, Nigeria in particular, hence it established Canon Nigeria with local people that understand the local market. “We have established our service network in Nigeria because Canon is about quality product in the area of digital cameras and we want to give Nigerians the opportunity to have quality products from the various

range of Canon digital cameras.

The instability in Nigeria’s currency as identified by Trodthandi, could be largely responsible for the lack of interest exhibited by some targeted foreign investors who are reluctant to invest in the country’s broadband initiative, despite the efforts of the federal government, through the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to woo foreign investors to invest in the country’s broadband sector.

The federal government has a history of wooing foreign investors to Nigeria at the yearly International Telecoms Union (ITU) exhibitions, but till date, the number of foreign investors expected to embrace Nigeria’s invitation, is not yet met, even though the NCC is optimistic that the effort of government will soon begin to yield the expected results.