Finance minister Wale Edun has assured investors that Nigeria is safe for investment.

Mr Edun said this at the Nigeria Investment Forum, at the ongoing World Bank/International Monetary Fund Meetings in Washington D.C. on Wednesday.

According to the minister, efforts are geared towards maintaining fiscal congruence.

“That’s one of the reasons for the new team at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, and their mandate is (to) increase production and save costs,” he said.

Mr Edun said the administration was intensifying efforts to diversify and stabilise the economy.

He said optimisation of assets was another route to closing the gap in the budget.

“We need to ensure that we maintain fiscal congruence, the mandate of NNPCL is to increase production and save cost, we are also diversifying the economy.

“We are committed to stabilising the economy so that the private sector will find it attractive to invest. Optimisation of assets is another route to closing the gap in the budget, the government believes in the sanctity of contracts,” Mr Edun said.

He explained that the administration of President Bola Tinubu had implemented foundational reforms that were now yielding results, with the country’s economy expanding.

“Our goal is not just to maintain this momentum, but to accelerate it. We are targeting seven per cent annual growth, and we believe the policies we have implemented have laid the groundwork to achieve this,” Mr Edun said.

He added that the macroeconomic stability was gradually returning, as reflected in narrowing budget deficits, improved trade balance, and a stabilising exchange rate.

Mr Edun also mentioned that the government was now shifting its focus to targeted sectoral growth.

According to him, the government’s top list is agriculture as the entire value chain, aiming to boost food security and enhance productivity.

“We aim to close the food supply gap, not by importing more, but by enabling domestic producers to scale up and innovate,” he said.

According to the minister, about 90,000km of fibre optic cable to enhance digital connectivity has been rolled out. Mr Edun said an additional 4,000km of roads had been tendered for private sector participation, with the first 1,000km already signed off for delivery.

The Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Yemi Cardoso, said the difficult reforms had begun to yield fruits, and the macroeconomy stabilised. He said the country was not relenting on its oars despite its crisis period in the past 18 months.

Mr Cardoso said the efforts were all geared towards building confidence and trust.

“The difficult reforms undertaken have begun to bear fruits. We have been able to stabilise microeconomy. Fitch has upgraded us more recently, no doubt we are in a period of heightened uncertainty.

“We have for the past 18 months been in a period of crisis and our response to that period is to roll our sleeves and ensure we build a stronger economy with respect to resilience and capacity to people and institutions.

“This is all about building confidence and trust but moving in a direction of more confidence and hope, if we continue in this direction we will achieve our set goals,” he said.

(NAN)