NCC, Galaxy Backbone, Others Support NITRA’s 3Q Seminar on ICT investment

Stakeholders in the Nigeria’s Information and Communication (ICT) industry will this month converge at a seminar in Lagos to discuss the way forward towards deepening investment inflow into the nation’s ICT industry.

The seminar, a brainchild of the Nigeria Information and Communication Technology Reporters Association (NITRA), holds on Friday August 28, 2015 at Westown a Hotels, Ikeja, Lagos.

The seminar brings together regulators, industry leaders and other key stakeholders to share their thoughts eon the theme: “Foreign Direct Investment: An Impetus to Achieving Ubiquitous Broadband Penetration.”

Sponsored by MTN Nigeria, Samsung Electronic West Africa, and Galaxy Backbone, the forum has also received the backing of the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), National Information Technology Development Agency of Nigeria (NITDA), and other industry stakeholders such as ATCON, ALTON, ISPON, NCS, as well as other players in the industry.

As the lead discussant at the forum, MTN Nigeria will examine the imperatives of Federal Direct Investments (FDIs) for further development of the nation’s ICT sector with a particular focus on broadband.

While Galaxy Backbone will give details of its activities in the area of e-Government strategy, Samsung will speak of innovation in mobile phone devices, as well as capacity building and skills acquisition.

With an investment profile of over $13 billion (over N2 trillion) in Nigeria, MTN Nigeria is a market leader with over 62 million subscribers on its network, a total market share of 46 per cent as at June 2015.

Panel sessions will feature specific discussions on regulatory activities, operational activities, investment potential, as well as impediments to the ongoing move to attract further investment into the sector, which has been identified as an investment haven for telecom business by Pyramid Research.

Speaking in a press statement issued in Lagos at the weekend, Mr. Emma Okonji, NITRA President, explained that the ‘NITRA Quarterly Seminar Series,’ which started this year, the third quarter edition has been packaged to highlight the imperatives of ICT investment in the country.
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“With over $32 billion local and foreign direct investment (FDI) and $10 billion needed over the next five years to build a robust Next Generation broadband network as the next growth frontier, the forum provides a veritable platform to tackle constraints to ICT investments.

“So, the theme of the event could have been more apt and timely, as the forum is coming after Nigeria just entered into a new government and, of course a new chief telecoms regulator, that need to have first-hand opportunity to know what the industry feel about investment drive to further grow the industry," he said.

“It is our belief that a forum such as this will make us contribute to the development of ICT industry and would create a meeting point for both private and public sector stakeholders and experts to dialogues as well as being a melting point for cross fertilization of their ideas toward contributing to the policy roadmap to furthering universal access to ICT in the country,” he added.