Nigeria’s Online Investors’ Guide for Launch Tomorrow

The Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) will on Thursday formally launch the country’s online investors’ guide.

Yewande Sadiku, Executive Secretary of NIPC, said the portal, which is already running, could be accessed through the NIPC website.

She said the platform would allow investors from around the world have access from anywhere and at any time. Basic information would be available for potential investment opportunities in Nigeria.

Ms Sadiku said the online portal was part of a series of initiatives by the investment promotion agency towards investment facilitation in the country.

Through the online platform, she said investors would get information and regular updates about the latest economic indices from agencies, such as the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), approvals from National Agency for Food & Drug Administration & Control (NAFDAC), Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), infrastructure regulatory concession agency and others.

Operations at the one-stop investment centre established since 2006, have been updated to allow potential investors visit a single location to do a number of businesses with about 27 different federal and regional agencies, Ms Sadiku said.

Some of the services available through the centre include business registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC); obtaining Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) tax identification number (TIN) and certificate of business registration, among others.

She said officials from different sectors of the economy, like the Nigeria Immigrations Service and Nigeria Customs Service were also available at the centre with equipment to show the duties and rules applicable to investors dealing with them.

In 2017, the executive secretary said a compendium of incentives was produced in collaboration with FIRS to provide investors information on the various incentives available in Nigeria based on tax laws, duties and other sector specific benefits.

Although the reform of the pioneer status incentives was completed last year, Ms Sadiku said the report was yet to be made public until a validation process was completed.