With a population of 140 million, Nigeria is the largest market in Africa. Oil-rich Nigeria, is undertaking some reforms under the new civilian administration. The oil sector provides 20% of GDP, 95% of foreign exchange earnings, and about 65% of budgetary revenues.

Nigeria is filled with mutual opportunities only if the investor could acquire the right contact and trade on a secured path of investing. There are 2000 industrial establishments in Nigeria. Among them are the giant oil industry , steel rolling mills , Iron complexes , pharmaceutical industries , food processing , car assembling and the export processing zone (EPZ). The government’s policy places priority on productions , abundantly skilled and versatile human resources .

PRIORITY AREAS

There are four industrial sectors which are considered priority areas of development because of their potential catalytic role and linkage effects on the other sectors and in the over all growth of the industrial sectors. These priorities which are in the fore front of the administration of government industrial incentives includes :

1. Agriculture

The main policy in agriculture is sufficiency in food production and surplus for use as industrial raw materials for exports. These includes :

i. All aspects of direct agriculture production , but in particular , rehabilitation of groundnut, cotton , cocoa , and oil palm production and forestry ;

ii. Investment in processing of agricultural input supply and distribution ;

iii. Investment in processing of agriculture produce and storage facilities ;

iv. Agriculture mechanization e.g. adoption and use of farm implements (such as bull dozers , tractors , etc ) including the provision of land clearing and land preparation services ;

v. Agricultural support activities including research and funding of research activities ;

vi. Water resources development , especially for irrigation and flood control infrastructure along river basins ;

vii. Development of earth dams and construction of wash bores and tube wells ;

viii. Development and fabrication of appropriate small – scale and mechanized technology for both on farm processing (e.g. threshing) and secondary processing of agricultural produce for consumption and storage.

2. Manufacturing industries

The aspects which are favored by the promulgated government’s industrial packages includes :

i. Industries which can either immediately or in a short distance of time , source their raw materials locally e.g. in the agro and agro allied sub – sectors for which there are vast natural resources , including food preparation ; fruit drinks , milling , feed milks and vegetable oil processing ;

ii. Industries which support food production programmes through local manufacture of chemical , equipments and light commercial vehicles in particular , and chemical as well as petrochemical based manufacturing industries in general ;

iii. Industries with multiplier effect such as flat sheet mills and machine tools industry includes foundries and engineering industries for spare parts production ;

iv. Basic industries for petrochemical and liquidified natural gas projects in which the government encourages foreign partners ;

v. Processing of local agricultural produce and minerals into industrial raw materials as manufactural intermediate goods required by the existing industries in the country.

3. Mining and mineral extraction (Non –oil).

There are tremendous opportunities in this sector. Outstanding among these are coal , gypsum, barytes , kaolin , and talc. Nigeria has the best quality coal deposits in the world with lowest sulphur content. The quantity expatiation for the possible industrial exploitation of these solid minerals are as follows :

i. Barytes : 41,000 and 70,000 tonnes deposits located in two different parts of the country , and used as inert volume and weight filler in drilling mud , rubber , glass , paper etc , or as extender in plant industry , and chemical in the manufacture of glass , heavy printing paper and plastics ;

ii. Coal : 82.2 million ,189 million tonnes and 32 million tonnes in three locations respectively. It’s used as fuel and in industrial production of tar , gas and non edible oils ;

iii. Diatomite : 200,000 tonnes of deposits , is used in making of insect control powder , bond for furnace brick wells and mineral fillers and filters ;

iv. Lignite : 71 million tonnes of deposits , is used in industrial production of tar , gas , oils and (nitrate) fertilizer;

v. Columbite : 14,223 tonnes of deposits , is used in forming of ally that are useful in nuclear , aerospace and gas and gas turbine engineering ;

vi. Iron ore : 30.48 million tonnes , 182.5 million tonnes and 45.72 million tonnes of deposits in three locations of the country respectively , used for making steel , transformer and motor cars , ferrous sulphate from waste liqueur of steel picking process or by the direct reaction , metals for electric fan cage , equipment rack , instrument body , engineering works , hydrated salt , iron oxide pigments , various salts of iron and ferrites and chemical ;

vii. Tin : 10,546 tonnes of deposits , is employed in plating , production of tin oxide used in paint , tin oxide resistors , electric lead wires , paper and ink industries.

4. Export manufacture

The activities identified by the studies of the federal ministry of industry as export market potential includes :

i. Agricultural produce processing , food and beverages ;

ii. Textiles : yarn / textiles , apparel , leather and leather products (including foot wear of rubber and plastics) ;

iii. Woods : furniture ;

iv. Fabricated metal products ;

v. Iron and steel , non ferrous metals ;

vi. Consumer durables.

5. Privatization

In the past governments used to play an active catalytic role in the economy by initiating and acting as stakeholders in number of core industries. But presently , such laws inhibiting competition has been repealed in certain sectors of the economy. The public enterprises promotion and commercial act has been enacted to privatize some of the government enterprises in the following sectors :

i. Telecommunication ;

ii. Electricity (Generation and distribution) ;

iii. Coal and bitumen production (mining , processing and export) ;

iv. Petroleum refining ;

v. Tourism generation (Tour, travels and hospitality).