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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu has said the House will prioritize legislations that will boost Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and make the choice destination for businesses in Africa.
Kalu stated this, on Friday, when the Deputy Ambassador, Embassy of Hungary, Ambassador Gabor Krauss paid him a courtesy visit, at the National Assembly.
The deputy speaker, who noted that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has a robust economic agenda that will reposition the business climate in the country, said the parliamentary will give him the necessary support to succeed.
According to him, “Nigeria is big with regards to playing a major role in the global market and anybody who sees the opportunity now and steps in stands to benefit from the market share that is going to spring up from Nigeria.
“I say so because we will be leveraging the Africa continental trade agreement, that we are all signatories to, that will be commencing soon. Most companies around the world are seeing beyond their own continents and looking into the continent of Africa.
“You know if you come to African continent, the biggest market is Nigeria. So anyone who’s going to be strategically positioned to benefit from the Africa continental trade agreement cannot avoid Nigeria.”
He added “so what you’re doing now is good for your country, by sniffing out opportunities, closer to your people to embrace. I want to promise that from this office which is the office of the Deputy Speaker, ours is to make sure that we provide the legal framework that will enable foreign direct investments and increase confidence in the business environment. All policies that will have to increase the confidence of investors, we will make sure we champion that through legislative interventions.
“Because we have seen, though from another arm of government, that the current president, means well for the nation. Being a man who has been in the private sector for many years, public sector as a governor, as a member of the parliament who has done critical analysis, I can assure you he has a sharp focus on what he wants to do in Nigeria, economically speaking.
“We are here to give him all the support, so any foreign direct investor that wants to come in should have at the back of their mind, that he’s only going to get support from the executive but the legislature is another place they can run to for comfort. We will make sure we fine tune all the areas of bottlenecks to enable new companies spring up. Thank you for this visit. I’m sure it won’t be the only time we will engage. If there’s anyway we can help, kindly let us know”.
Earlier, Krauss said his mission was to communicate to the deputy speaker their plan to bring more investments and humanitarian projects to Nigeria.
He stated that recently, they visited Abia State, where they sought to establish a factory as a joint venture that will see the Hungarian government bringing the technology while the state will provide the land.
