In its quest to attract Foreign Direct Investment into the Nigerian Maritime sector, the Management of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA has assured investors from the Asian region of a conducive investment atmosphere in Nigeria.
The meetings series of meetings were a critical part of the jus concluded Asia Pacific Maritime Expo which took place in Singapore. The expo was attended by more than 800 leading International Organizations in the maritime sector from 52 countries.
An estimated $300million credit facility for indigenous ship owners and operators in Nigerian is one of the major fallouts of the Asian tour in which the NIMAS boss led a strong team of Nigerian ship owners and bankers to meetings with their Malaysian counterparts.
Omatseye who left venue of the expo at Singapore for Malaysia explained that the move to secure the facility is to further assist Nigerians in the shipping sub-sector to acquire more vessels.
He lamented that the level of involvement of Nigerians in the affreightment of both refined products and crude is not encouraging when compared to the total volume of business in the sector.
Omatseye disclosed that apart from the deal with Malaysians bankers, NIMASA is also talking to Koreans for the same purpose of helping Nigerian ship owners with off shore funds to acquire ocean liners.
"I have had meetings with ship yards, I have actually a discussion with bunker fuel companies, we are having meeting with Lyods for vessel tracking and we are going to open a communication line with them and my expectation is that when they are requesting for Nigerians who do this line of business, I will match make them and create the networking for Nigerians.
"The most important thing is that we as government must create the right environment, we must provide cover for our people for them to do what is right.
"So my expectation is that when I get back, I should be able to provide a cover for Nigerians to takes advantage of these efforts to boost the local shipping industry in Nigeria.
Apart form the loan deal with Malaysian bankers, the NIMASA DG also led a delegation from the agency to meet with the Management of the Maritime Ports Administration of Singapore where avenues of cooperation were explored. The Group Director Policy and Planning, Yee Cheok Hong commended NIMASA for reaching out to them. He promised cooperation in the area of capacity building, encouraging Singaporean maritime service providers to explore the Nigerian maritime industry, and in the area of ship building and acquisition.
Mr. Omatseye also met with representatives of the fourth largest Shipping Group in the world, STX Group and educated them on the opportunities in the Nigerian maritime sector. The Deputy President of the STX group Yao Han Thung, who led the delegation from STX, admitted ignorance about the Nigerian Maritime potentials and noted that his company is delighted at the prospect of investing in Nigeria and immediately scheduled a visit to Nigeria in June this year.
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