Business EU to Spend €600m on Nigeria's Power Sector, Food Security and National Development

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LequteMan

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The European Union (EU) said yesterday it had concluded plans to spend about €600 million in ‎Nigeria over the next five years in order to help attract foreign investments into the country’s power sector as well as to boost food security.

The Ambassador, Head of Delegation of the European Union to Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Mr. Michael Arrion, ‎speaking during a media luncheon in Lagos explained that the amount represents about five per cent of the EU's entire budget for the African, Carribean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

“We are injecting about €600 million for the next five years into Nigeria. Nigeria is one of the top of recipients of development grants from the European Union, but the amount is nothing compared to the need because it is not €500 million, but €50 billion which Nigeria needs to address most of its development challenges,” he said.

“The EU’s plan to invest its development aid programmes to support the government to improve the business climate by boosting the confidence of international investors to invest in Nigeria."

“Nigeria must use our group of European nations to really improve political and policy dialogues between Nigeria and European countries. We are really keen to engage with the Nigerian government in areas of political and policy dialogues both at the state and federal levels”, he said.

“We are implementing development cooperation programmes in three main sectors such as electricity energy, food security, water and the basic social services.

“We are also quite active in the field of governance, criminal justice and human right which are clearly linked to democracy.”

According to ThisDay, he added that discussions have started with the security apparatus of the state, stressing that Nigeria has to address its current security challenges to develop.

“We believe that there is no development without peace and security, if you want to address the root causes of under development ‎of some countries including Nigeria, security issues should be addressed,” he added.

Arrion noted that Nigeria is no doubt central to the growth of the continent, adding that the economy has continued to grow at an average of seven per cent over the last 10 years attributing the growth to be driven by the non-oil sector of the economy.

#Nigeria #EU #EuropeanUnion #ThisDay

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