Industry leaders across the entire spectrum of the organised private sector on Tuesday quizzed the Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on the posture of the state government towards providing an enabling environment for privately-owned businesses.
The interactive session was organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry to bring to the fore, some of the key concerns of the private sector on areas that the government was expected to improve on.
Present were manufacturing CEOs, bankers, industrialists as well as representatives of the Chinese, United Arab Emirates and Indian high commissions.
Questions posed by different speakers at the event bordered on the government’s responsiveness to the plight of organised businesses, its current efforts at ensuring renewable energy in the state as well as perceived duplication of roles of certain government agencies.
In his reaction, Sanwo-Olu said his government was working exceedingly hard to ensure a level playing field for private entities.
He stated further that Lagos had become an investment hub not just in Nigeria but in the entire African continent, which had been largely attributable to industry-friendly policies that had engendered growth of the private sector.
He said, “Technology is one area that we are focusing on, because we have seen a lot of FDIs. Just so that you know, four international names have come in to Lagos. Equinox bought MainOne. It was a $250m investment. They built a data centre. I went there to commission it. It is a state of the art facility. Equinox is the biggest data centre in the world, and they are here in Nigeria.
“Outside that, we have Kasi, an hyper-scale data centre provider. They broke away from Equinox. It is another $250m investment. We have done the ground-breaking and the site is going on. These are places that are going to be recruiting hundreds of young, smart Lagosians and Nigerians. Microsoft has opened. They are on the eighth floor on Kingsway Road. They are also pushing to make sure they have a space here. We are going to have an African centre here in Lagos. All of these great things are happening.”
On his part, the Director-General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Asiwaju Dr Michael Olawale-Cole, thanked Sanwo-Olu for ensuring a healthy environment for private businesses to operate in.
He said, “Lagos State has continued to be the investment haven for foreign investments coming to Nigeria. Most recent data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that Lagos State alone attracted $1.119bn (71 percent) out of the $1.573bn in the first quarter of 2022. Our concern about the composition of Nigeria’s capital importation is that the proportion of foreign direct investments at only 9.5 percent needs special attention and calls for immediate actions towards addressing critical issues affecting our business environment.
