I want to share my ideas on this topic but i need to gather our financial experts and analysts to join in. They can shoot them down or refine and add theirs.

Posting will commence this evening at 6pm. It will consider problems and solutions.

But we want to focus on what we can do outside of govt circles, in case getting them involved is difficult.

989900. Bevista, Pavore9, obiagelli, firefire, lalasticlala, mynd44, LRNZH

Kindly join in and invite others.

Hello,

There are creative ways of boosting FDi, but let us hear your views first.

As a contribution, let me tell you about a startup I just Founded that can help increase FDi into Nigeria.

The Company Focuses on Nigerians in Daispora, it helps them do anything related to design and construction, purchase and management, verification and documentation of Real Estate at any location in Nigeria, in a structured way that protects their money, gives them a way to track the project progress at a cost that is affordable.

The remittance of the Nigerian Diaspora per year averages 21 Billion dollars , thats a huge percentage of our FDi. 10 PERCENT OF THAT money is spent on Housing and Real Estate........That means the Niche my company is Targeting is worth 2.1 Billion Dollars per year.

Overall success in executing this business model will mean further expansion of the market from the 2.1 billion dollar valuation to larger chunks of the remittance figure..............Thats structured FDi inflow one.

We are also going to expand into Botswana and Kenya, (due to certain very interesting data) and other African countries to serve their diasporan populace.......This means Revenue will be generated from serving these Markets and remitted back to our Head quarters in Nigeria.......that is another Structured FDi inflow into Nigeria..........

It even gets way more interesting if you have access to the data and analysis I have..........so there are creative ways of increasing inflow into the Country.

my startup's website is www.artizanniltd.com.

I am also working on another Startup that will also increase FDi into the Country....

This is about Crowdlending........not Crowdfunding.

There is no crowdlending platform in Nigeria, due to lack of any credit rating system like you have in developed countries, but you'll discover that a lot of people have funds residing in savings accounts with banks in Nigeria that is losing value daily as the Naira slides down further.

Crowdlending is a way to make your money work for you at no risk, while yielding interest rates that is way higher than what the bank savings account will give you.

The idea abou the Croedlending model for Ngeria is to make it possible for People in Nigeria to lend money to anybody around the world( anybody with an acceptable credit rating, typically from developed countries ). No need for any collateral, once the credit rating is acceptable...no problem.

The currency on this platform will be the Naira. That is if you live in the UK and you want to borrow money from our platform, you have to borrow in Naira. This will create a demand for the Naira, bringing up its value versus any other currency, and the associated interest payments will also lead to an increase in FDi for the country..

That is just the gist behind the whole thing, its way more refined and developed than is explained here..but I hope you get the gist.

The other variant of this crowdlending idea is to focus specifically on vehicle financing and property development..In this model, Nigerians will lend to Nigerians in an asset backed lending system..eg. you need a loan for a 1 Million Naira car, you ll come to the platform, choose the specifics of the car you want, get its cost, you ll drop a 100,000 deposit, the crowd lends you 900k, at an interest rate you specify, we get you the car, insure and track it, and expect you to start paying back according to the amortization schedule, you miss a payment, you get a warning, you miss another, we impound the car. No Stories.

Hi all.
Brief synopsis.
Things started accelerating with the ban of 41 items from official dollar access. Various other policies have failed to stem the slide.

Calls to devalue come from different groups for diverse reasons- MAN for import of raw materials, SMEDAN for equipment, even a governor for equitable allocations.

But I firmly believe it's unnecessary to devalue. I'll list actions that can be taken. I'll leave out the reasons for comments from others.

1. The dollar scarcity is artificial- due to cbn restrictions.

-Lift the ban on dollar access.

-Create tax brackets for categories of items, from vital to luxury.

-Tax up to 50% per dollar for imports, based on category.

-Provide tax holidays or rebates for capital imports.

-Provide tax certificates- not currency- for ALL imports.

Next, increasing fdi. Comments pls. Tnx

As annoyingly repetitive as it may seem, we can't get out of this quagmire without addressing the below 'causes' -- even if we devalue the Naira to N1,000 to a Dollar!

1. Check excess liquidity and currency racketeering/fraud (see Henry Boyo's explanation. . . I have posted many stuffs about it previously), while promulgating industry revolutionizing monetary policies.

2. Amend our laws to draw in investors (use propaganda if need be).

3. Amend power generation and transmission laws to attract investors in that sector . . . do everything possible on earth and beyond to achieve at the least, 15 hours stable power supply averagely (this would catalyze industrial revolution, while reducing demand for refined pet. products).

4. Refineries -- we need all four gov't refineries, and tens of modular ones running since last decade -- until we stop the importation of refined petroleum products that eats up, up to 30-40% of our Forex, we are going no where!
We were bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in the early 90s from refined products exports, right now, we should have colonized West Africa with NNPC products everywhere (refined products have no OPEC cap)!

5. Encourage exports, and local content.

Re: Senator Bruce: As much as I admire his vigor and enthusiasm about the whole 'buyNaija' awareness, it's just a fraction in the scheme of things!

While importing palm oil from the same Malaysia we introduced palm oil to, importing eggs from South Africa we fought and paid to liberate, importing rice from a politically unstable Thailand, or toothpicks from hell are all 'weirdos', they account for far less than what
importation of refined petroleum products cost us; then we have the importation of aircrafts and parts and servicing which costs us hundreds of millions of dollars annually -- but Bruce believes it's about our average $20-$50 shoes or bags, $100 phones, or what-not (roughly 10-20 percent of our forex demand), or about our cheap $5,000 cars which by the way generates income for customs when they 'land', while gov't and it's officials are actually the ones bringing the forex gulping machines (probably without paying custom duties).
NBS just released a report indicating between January 2010 - September 2015, we spent over N20 trillion (roughly $130 BILLION . . . 2014 dollar) on just importation of PMS, AGO, and DPK alone!
Same refined products we mine from our backyards, same refined products we were net exporters of (raking in millions of dollars from), 25 years ago! If this is not madness, what is?

Re: Ifeanyi Ubah: Though he is yet to disclose his so called "secret" or magic wand (but I guess it is: probably supporting the country's fuel import-consumption . . . probably for some while).

My own idea of bringing the dollar exchange rate to below N200 in say 3 months would be namely:

Stop the importation of refined products now and find alternative to how we survive without it -- it gulps 40% of our forex!

Crazy, right? However, we probably can (everyone's contribution and criticism would be helpful here), if the gov't is serious about it, and if it can carry the people along especially with the budding awareness of the demise of our economy.

1. Get the NNPC, special task forces, Armed forces, and the people on board as regards protecting the pipelines.

2. Get NNPC to make sure the refineries do not slouch again, rather, increasing in production.

3. Get the few trains we have working, and create an awareness on conserving fuel.

4. Provide very affordable mass transit buses, while encouraging car owners to shed usage, or re-introduce something similar to our old 'odd number/even number system' for cars that should have access to the road on particular days.

5. Provide gas, give free/cheap cylinders to boot if necessary.

6. Power: without fairly stable power supply it will be a difficult one. Fairly stable power reduces the need for PMS and AGO, reduces importation of generators and alternative power equipment.

7. Checkmate cross-border fuel smuggling.

8. Modular refineries: they can be imported and made operational in months.

9. Sell off some portion of gov't assets to foreign investors. #ppp

Additionals:

10. Encourage Nigerians overseas to invest back home.

11. Recover all debts, 'stolens', and 'accruables'.

12. Reduce gov't recurrent expenditure and buying local for all gov't purposes if available -- starting with them senator's cars, and presidential budget and travels.

13. Consider changing currency colors.

14. Agric exports.





If we can do all the above (sounds crazy though . . . desperate situation calls for desperate measures), our refined fuel consumption rate should drop to 'near' what NNPC can support, or at worst, greatly reduce importation of refined fuel by more than 60%. Then we "buynaija"; the Naira will firm up, and the CBN can probably tweak the exchange rate to gain say N2-N4/$, which will indicate a direction of positive purpose, causing the BM, hoarders, and racketeers to panic-sell their dollars, while the CBN tries it 's best to enforce and enhance/support a strict range for bank rates.

Devaluation 'in our case', is a symptomatic approach to a systematic malady: underlying causes won't be cured!
It's like taking paracetamol as a curative for stage 4 cancer -- it 'probably' might make your pain dissipate (very likely it won't), but just for a very little while.

*Everyone's contribution and criticism would be helpful here.

So I had to modify the title. Make it more attention grabbing! Lol

Here's what will generate immediate dollar income-
Without costing govt any money!

1. (Incidentally, this is what Britain did.)
Sell off 49% of all income generating parastatals to foreign investors- nnpc, nimasa, tcn, our dams, ALL federal and state airports, etc.

2. Give a deadline to ALL transport, general goods and appliances manufacturers to establish parts factories or face a ban on their products.
This happened in Singapore.

3. In each sector, valuate the infrastructural assets. Then invite the major stake holders to sell their stock to govt and the funds are used as (part) payment towards the 49% of the assets. They constitute the management board, focused on profits, while govt focuses on standards and consumer (citizens') protection.
This was India's way out of their petroleum products cabal.

But in truth, no one in govt will even hear, much less implement these plans. But some day soon...