3rd July, 2020
By Adejoke Adeyemi
Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, has inaugurated the State Business Environment Council, with a charge on members to come up with sustainable reforms that would bring about improved and practical approaches towards Ease of Doing Business in the State.
Inaugurating the Council in his office at Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, Governor Abiodun noted that most investments over the years had been driven by investors themselves to benefit from the State comparative and competitive advantages.
“It is important to leverage on the advantage and develop a structure towards improving engagement with potential investors and continually improve the processes to enable investors invest more efficiently with little or no red tape or bottleneck”, he said.
Speaking on the precarious business situation in the country, the governor quoted the National Bureau of Statistics’ report which stated that foreign investment in Nigeria had in the third quarter of last year, dropped to $5.36bn, compared to $5.82bn in the second quarter, adding that 29 states did not get any investment flow last year.
“We thank God that Ogun State is still among the leading states that attract more foreign investment in the third quarter of 2019. Ogun State came third after Lagos and Abuja.
“What this simple means is that competition for investment inflow is high, investment inflow is dwindling. Therefore, we most device sustainable strategy to attract investment into our dear State”, he advised.
He said government has formulated policies and reforms to engender investment growth, listing some of them to include; establishment of the Public Private Partnership Office and the State Investment, Promotion and Facilitation Agency (OgunInvest).