Despite economic slowdown, Nigeria still guarantees highest return on investment, the Minister of Finance, Budget & National Planning, Zainab Ahmed has said.
The minister made this disclosure while addressing a special plenary at the just concluded 2019 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group in Washington DC.
While speaking at the IMFC Plenary, Mrs. Ahmed, who spoke on behalf of the 23 member countries at the Africa Group I Constituency on the priorities of the continent and how the current global slowdown has impacted the respective economies, observed that in spite of the many socioeconomic challenges assailing many countries of the continent, it was encouraging to note that the return on investment in most countries of African descent remains attractive.
Fielding questions from journalists, the minister recalled that she drew the attention of the international community to Nigeria’s peculiarities of higher interest rates and high returns in the face of global ‘lowe for longer rates’ and called on the investing public to consider investing in African countries where returns are high.
“ I urged the Fund to consider proffering country specific policies that will address the issue of high interest rates in our countries. For the emerging markets and developing economies, we noted the implications of the slowdown of systemic countries like China, India, Brazil, Turkey on the commodity exporters like Nigerian and South Africa among others and we called for strong momentum in structural reforms, well calibrated deployment of fiscal policies to stimulate productivity and the pursuance of tight monetary policies to ensure price stability,” she said.
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