The interest of foreign investors in Nigeria declined by 80 per cent in the second quarter of this year going by the reduced number of investment announcements monitored by the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC).
The NIPC report stated that investment announcements in Nigeria fell to $1.69 billion in the second quarter of this year from $8.41billion in Q1, indicating a decline of about 80 per cent.
The report said the total value of investments interests in the first half of this year fell by $1.57bn to $10.11bn, compared to the second half of last year.
The figure is, however, $5.05bn higher than that of the same period of last year.
An analysis of investment announcements by sectors revealed that the manufacturing sector attracted the highest investments with $5.9bn or 58 per cent.
It was followed by construction, $2.9bn (29 per cent); electricity (including gas, steam and air conditioning supply), $680m (seven per cent); information and communication, $410m (four per cent); while others recorded $210m or two per cent.
By destination, Bayelsa and Delta states attracted the most investments out of the 14 states that were listed, with $3.60bn (36 per cent) and $2.94bn (29 per cent), respectively.
They were followed by Akwa Ibom with $1.40bn (14 per cent); Lagos received $0.70bn (seven per cent) while a total of $1.45bn (15 per cent) went to the other 10 states.
The report also showed that domestic investors made the highest contribution of $3.29bn or 33 per cent of the total investment announcements; $1.40bn (14 per cent) emanated from Morocco; $950m (nine per cent) from China; $640m (six per cent) from UK; and other sources accounting for $3.82bn or 38 per cent.
The NIPC said Nigeria received 29 projects across 14 states in H1 2021, compared to 34 projects across 16 states and the Federal Capital Territory in H1 2020.
Further analysis of the report showed that in the past five years, investment announcements recorded in H1 2021 decreased by $9.23bn from the $19.34bn recorded in H1 2017.
