The Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) has called for partnerships with American investors to enhance Nigeria’s free trade zones and boost job creation and to expand exports.
Dr Olufemi Ogunyemi, the Managing Director of NEPZA, in a statement on Friday, made the call while delivering a lecture at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.
The lecture titled “Free Zones and Industrial Competitiveness: Catalysing Investment Through Regulatory Innovation” was part of a side event themed “Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria: A New Era of Economic Opportunities.”
Ogunyemi said the forum provided a vital space to match policy action with private capital.
“Nigeria’s free zones are designed as practical business enclaves for industrial upgrading and credible, regionally scalable investments.
“We are therefore asking U.S. investors and institutions to undertake site visits to Lagos Free Zone, Lekki Free Zone, Abuja Industrial Park Free Zone and other zones to see existing infrastructure and anchor tenants,” he said.
According to him, NEPZA is seeking partnerships for anchor projects that would transform into small and medium enterprises’ factory shells, create jobs and promote local procurement content.
He said opportunities also existed for co-financing shared infrastructure that would enable hundreds of tenant investments and support scaling up of production for exports.
Ogunyemi reaffirmed NEPZA’s readiness to support due diligence, provide regulatory clarity, and facilitate the needed structure for investors willing to move from dialogue to signed commitments.
The NEPZA boss said the authority had applied world-class mechanisms to raise the industrial competitiveness of the free zones through infrastructure development, regulatory predictability, cluster effects and market access.
He said the Federal Government, through NEPZA, would continue to prioritise private capital in building infrastructure in both private and public-private partnership free zones, describing them as principal engines of rapid transformation.
Ogunyemi urged investors to consider the vast size of the Nigerian market as a springboard for regional expansion and international exports.
He also thanked the Presidency for including NEPZA in Nigeria’s UNGA delegation, and the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) for providing a platform to attract U.S. investors into the free zones.
