Muhammad Musa Bello, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister, says the FCT administration has provided enough incentives that would encourage investment climate.
Some of the incentives, according to Bello, is waving out premium on land for serious investors in the capital city to encourage their investments.
He said: “The FCT has given land and waved out even the premium for serious investors. You see all the companies that have sprang up in the FCT, in one way or the other, have received incentives for their businesses from us.”
The minister, who was represented by the managing director of Abuja Investment Company, Musa Musa, at the first quarterly meeting of Nigeria Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (NACCIMA), said the organised private sector was welcomed with the open-door policy of the present administration to fast-track investment inflow in the FCT.
The Abuja Investment Company is the representative of the commercial and investment arm of the FCT, being an investment sub-sector, it represents both the interest of the government and the private sector.
So far, Abuja, according to the former minister of the FCT, Bala Mohammed, has attracted N1.8 trillion worth of private capital investments. The areas of investment inflow include infrastructure provision through land swap, city centre, railway, housing development, commerce, hotel and tourism.
But, Bello said attracting investment inflow into the FCT was a key priority of his administration, as he said some investors who had land acreages allocated for commercial development were yet to explore advantage of such gesture from the government.
He said: “Industry watchers believe that Abuja, despite its strategic position is yet to explore its commercial and industrial advantages, largely due to lack of industrial citation in the city, as witnessed in Lagos, which is still the commercial capital of the country.”
