Davos: Nigeria can capture global supply chains, says Okonjo-Iweala

The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said Nigeria must deliberately target global investors and supply chain relocations to drive job creation, deepen manufacturing, and reduce import dependence.

She made the remarks on Wednesday in a short clip posted by GLAZIA on its X handle from a discussion titled “From Scale to Capital: Financing Nigeria’s Role as Africa’s Digital Trade and Infrastructure Anchor,” held at Nigeria House during the ongoing World Economic Forum in Davos.

The PUNCH reports that rising geopolitical tensions, particularly between the United States and China, have accelerated supply chain diversification. Firms are increasingly adopting “China+1” sourcing strategies to reduce single-country risk, although China remains deeply embedded in many global value chains. In addition, tariffs and trade restrictions have incentivised companies to reconsider reliance on dominant suppliers, prompting the relocation or diversification of production hubs.

Okonjo-Iweala maintained that these disruptions present an opportunity for Nigeria to capture a share of global supply chains but stressed that this would require aggressive marketing of the country to prospective investors.

She said, “As you said, some good reforms are being pursued right now. I think they need to yield to job creation. That was what I said to His Excellency—that we need to move from stabilisation to job creation, because that is where we are lacking. It is not going to be overnight, but they are moving in the right direction. What I think they need to do is map where the opportunities are.

“What I would like to see is a continued effort to attract investment into the country, because there is an opportunity now to attract these supply chains. If there is one thing I would say, it is that everything we can do to showcase Nigeria as a country worthy of investment is what we should be doing.

“And we should deliberately have strategies to go after those investments and investors—to go to China, the US, whatever it takes—to come and invest in our country. As companies seek to diversify supply chains, a lot of that movement is still within Asia. Diversification is moving from China but still within Asia, and India is another destination. We should attract a sizeable chunk of that. I’m not saying all.