Nigeria’s economy attracted $16.6bn foreign direct investment within a 20-year period spanning 2001 to 2020, from the activities of the country’s Oil and Gas Free Trade Zones Authority (OGFZA)
The Authority also attracted N255.33 billion local investments into the country within the review.
The Managing Director of OGFZA, Okon Umana, disclosed this during an interview with journalists in Abuja.
According to him, between January and May 2021 alone, OGFZA generated N9.41bn as revenue through the free trade zones.
A breakdown of the revenue revealed that N2.1bn was generated in January, while February, March, April and May had N1.45bn, N4.39bn, N1bn and N453.98m respectively.
He said the improvements in management since he came on board had resulted in huge interests by both local and foreign investors in the zones.
The OGFZAs boss stated that currently, there were about N6.1 billion investments that were expected to materialise in the Liberty Oil and Gas Free Zone.
In terms of job creation, the Umana stated that the investments had been able to unlock many direct and indirect jobs, thereby empowering many Nigerians.
He said between 2005 and 2015, the authority had created 40,508 direct jobs and indirect jobs with conservative estimates at about 160,000.
