Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari has assured international investors that bureaucratic bottlenecks negatively affecting business in Nigeria have been removed by his administration.
While speaking at a meeting with top officials of Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Toyota Group on the sidelines of the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 7) in Yokohama Japan, President Buhari urged investors to give Nigeria a trial.
Deputy Governor of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Mr Nobumitsu Hayashi indicated its interest in supporting projects in which Japanese companies are involved in Nigeria.
It had lots of resources dedicated for that purpose, and would be interested in oil and gas and investments in infrastructure, the bank declared.
Buhari, according to his Special Adviser on Media and publicity, Femi Adesina, welcomed the bank, and drew attention to the Ease of Doing Business introduced by government to provide a conducive environment for businesses to operate.
At a bilateral meeting with Toyota Tsusho, a part of the Toyota conglomerate, President/CEO of the group, Ichiro Kashitani, indicated interest in sectors like energy, healthcare and automobiles, saying Toyota would be delighted to have presence all over Nigeria.
Kashitani spoke of Toyota Tsusho’s interest in building an advanced medical diagnostics centre, which would foreclose need for foreign travel to obtain cutting edge medical diagnosis.
President Buhari urged the group to also consider setting up a car assembly plant, noting that Nigeria had the capacity to absorb the investment for positive returns.
At another meeting with the Prime Minister of Algeria, Noureddine Bedoui, President Buhari counseled that the political programme in the country be faithfully executed, which would lead to general elections as soon as possible.