Manufacturing: Russian companies to invest $500 million in Nigeria – NIDO

The Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation (NIDO) has revealed that 9 Russian companies have declared interest to invest the sum of $500 million into Nigeria’s manufacturing sector.

This was disclosed by Mr Sampson Uwem-Edimo, Chairman of the Commission in a statement on Sunday in Lagos, ahead of the Russia-Nigeria Business Conference.

What NIDO is saying

“No investment happens without trade; the trade volume between Nigeria and Russia today is around half a billion dollars; sometimes, it gets to a billion dollars.

It is a very small amount for this kind of business, and for Russia and Nigeria that currently have more than three trillion dollars GDP market.

What we want to do is to see how we can improve the volume of trade between the two countries within the next two years. We do not just want trade, but we want it to lead to investment in terms of manufacturing.

So, we are not only looking at these nine companies but using them as a test run to see the response from the Nigerian side.

Ultimately, we hope that within the next three years, we can get between 30 and 40 Russian companies making some sort of manufacturing in Nigeria,” he said.

He added that the conference will hold on July 8 in Moscow, Russia, citing that it would deepen ties between the business community of both countries, while also enabling both economies to understand their markets.

Mr Suren Vardanyan, Vice-President, Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said “Our goal is to triple the trade volume within the next two years and bring direct partnership in the area of manufacturing, as the Russian companies can collaborate with new or existing Nigerian companies for expansion or creation of production plants.”