The  severe impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on economic activities has triggered 62 percent, year-on-year (YoY), fall in real sector investment in the first quarter ended March 31, 2020, to $4.81 billion in the first quarter ended March 31, 2020, from $12.7 billion in the corresponding period in 2019,

Nigeria Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) disclosed this in a report titled, “Report of Investment Announcements, Q1 2020”.

According to the agency, the decline in value of investment followed the impact of the coronavirus pandemic that has crippled global economic activities in the last three months.

The report showed that foreign investors accounted for a large chunk of the investment announcements at 84 percent or $4.04 billion of the total, while domestic investors accounted for mere $77  million, representing 16 percent of the total investment.

Investors were more favourably disposed to the transportation and information and communication sectors as both sectors accounted for 76 percent of total investment for the period.

Specifically, the transportation sector received the highest investment interest, accounting for 42 percent of the total investment at $2.02  billion, while the information and communication sector emerged second with $1.59  billion, representing 33 percent of the total investment.

Also, the mining and quarrying, and the agriculture sectors accounted for $1.01  billion, representing 21 percent and $19  million, representing four percent of the total investment, respectively.

The report further showed that Kaduna State received the highest share of the investment announced with $2.61 billion to be invested in transportation, mining and quarrying as well as the manufacturing sector.

Nasarawa State received investments worth $56 million to be invested in agriculture, while five investments valued at $29 million were targeted at Lagos State. The investments, according to NIPC, would be committed to manufacturing, information and communication and electricity.

The report also showed that destination of eight investments, representing 44 percent of all the investments tracked by the agency during the period were unknown.

United States of America was the most active source of investments during the period with 42 percent of the announcements, followed by South Africa at 33 percent of the total investment. Domestic investors accounted for 16 percent, while United Kingdom accounted for eight percent of the investment tracked by the agency.

Vanguard