Nigeria Content Online

A
student of Chinese University of Hong Kong on study tour to Nigeria has
lamented the high cost of living and doing business in Nigeria.

Xu Jiang, an Urban
and Regional Planning student who was among the students on the tour
complained that the high cost will discourage investors. Mr. Jiang made
the assertion while on a visit to the Nigeria Investment Promotion
Commission on Monday at Abuja.

More expensive than Hong Kong

“We are coming from
Hong Kong considered to be one of the most expensive cities in the
world but Hong Kong government is talking about how to reduce the cost
of living in order to attract more investment,” he said. “Coming to
Nigeria, one question we are talking about is that we found the
consumer goods or the cost of living here is probably and actually in
all aspects more expensive than that in Hong Kong.

We just want to
understand why, what is the major reason of being one the most
expensive cities in the world. We just want to understand why because
you have your own manufacturing industry, you have your own agriculture
and may be importing some goods but in Hong Kong we import some goods
also but it is not as expensive as the price of goods here. We want to
understand why, what is the major reason.”

Government on top of it

Mustafa Bello,
executive secretary of the commission, said government was addressing
the high cost of doing business through the various reform programmes
set up. He added that when the reform was completed, Nigeria will
compete favourably with other countries in terms of investment while
noting that despite the challenges, investors in the country smile to
the banks all the time because return on investment in the country is
high.

The team was led by Lawal Marafa, a Nigerian teaching in the Chinese
University, who hinted that the visit provides their students the
opportunity to understand more about the country; the landscape, the
climate conditions, and the economic activities as part of their field
study programmes where the students are expected to visit three
countries before graduation.