 Your Excellency, the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, Ambassador Mohammed Danceta Rimi, the Consul-General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in Dubai, Abu S. Mohammed, the Consul-General of Ghana, Mr. Samanta Gifi Bukari, the Special Assistant to the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Middle East Region, Pastor Charles Adiboki. Captains of industry, the Chairman and Z-Group Nigerian, His Royal Highness Alajia Liu-Tamesi, a Chairman of the Kostcharis Group, Mr. Constance Maduka, distinguished guests, Your Excellencies of the Diplomatic Core, Present Ladies and Gentlemen. It really is a very special pleasure to be here with you for the Dubai Professional Business Summit, which, I'm told, is a platform for discussing beneficial investment and business opportunities on the global scene. I must thank the Christ the Redeemer's Fellowship for the honor of this invitation to deliver this keynote address. This year's Summit seeks to explore the investment opportunities between the UAE and Nigeria. We already know that about a decade back in 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis, investors sought out the emerging markets in Africa as the last investment frontiers, and there was then a sense of urgency. But little traction was gained. That opportunity was lost. However, it seems to me that the next best time to explore those investment opportunities is clearly now. Why? Consider, for instance, the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, recent upgrade of the economic outlook for sub-Saharan Africa. And the major role that Nigeria's emergence from a recession onto positive growth is expected to play in that regional outlook. The prospects are clearly bright. In February 2017, the present administration, present government of Nigeria, launched the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan 2017 to 2020. The Recovery Plan was conceptualized to place the Nigerian economy on the path of stronger, more sustainable and inclusive growth. In Q1 2018, the first quarter of 2018, the economy grew 1.95%, and is projected to grow 3% over this year, driven by stronger oil prices, stable production, increased non-oil output, and foreign exchange availability. Inflation has fallen 16 times, month to month, from 18.72% in January 2017 to 11.6% in May 2018. Foreign investment has also risen, and this is new investment, from a low of about a billion in the first quarter, a billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of 2017 to about 4.1 billion in the third quarter of 2017. That's a 150% growth. Total capital inflow, and this is fresh capital, in the first last quarter of 2017 was about $12.2 billion, a growth of about another 1.36% over the quarter ending in 2017. With no restrictions whatsoever on ownership of businesses and guaranteed 100% repatriation of invested funds, we have a stable foreign exchange market, combined with rising income levels. Nigeria's external reserves have risen to a four-year high of $47.8 billion as of the 14th of May 2018, and that's U.S. dollars. Our fundamentals are extremely good, and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan has been implemented to keep the economy on the path of sustainable economic growth and global competitiveness. If you ever have reason to doubt the investment case for Nigeria, all you need to do is to look at China's investments, its projected investments, with over $60 billion U.S. dollars worth of investments, especially in 2018. The largest portion of that, of course, is directed at Nigeria, from all indications. I think it bears repeating to say that the case for investing in Nigeria is a compelling one, and most of us here are possibly already familiar with the story. For instance, as we strive to diversify our economy away from oil, strengthen our institutions and our infrastructure, Nigeria is poised to be the fastest growing African economy, and the world's 14th-largest economy by 2050. This becomes even more compelling as we are the most populous African nation in the world, and by the other projections, the other demographic projections, we are to be the third-largest country in the world by 2050, in terms of population. This means that Nigeria is the consumption demand market and the labor supply market of the future, at least as far as Africa is concerned, and as far as most of the world will be concerned at that time. Therefore, just as Dubai is seen as an attractive business destination, a major transport hub for passengers and cargo, connecting the Middle East to the rest of the world, Nigeria's cities like Abuja, Kano, Lagos and Potakot are certainly attractive investment destinations for capital, for skills, technology, connecting Africa to the rest of the world today, and certainly beyond. Going by the trade figures between Nigeria and the UAE, what I will say is that the good news is that there is a lot of headroom for expansion. Nigeria's capital inflows from the UAE were less than $350 million in 2017. Today, that's $350 million US dollars. Today, trade relations with the UAE in the first quarter of 2018 were barely hinged on the importation of a few items such as motorcycles, used vehicles and CKD, completely knocked down parts of vehicles. Some chemical fertilizers, electrical parts for telephones were just under $50 million US dollars. So the possibilities for significantly deeper trade and investment relations must be explored by both countries to harness that potential. Starting with aviation, Nigeria has announced the commencement of the process of commissioning its major international airports with a view to attracting world-class investors and of course world-class operators. And only this week we announced our new national carrier, Nigeria Air, which we expect will be owned and run entirely by the private sector with the government having only a notional 5% stake in that enterprise. These initiatives are aimed at consolidating Nigeria's position as the regional hub for trade and investment. And taking our hospitality sector and our boarding tourism drivers examples, about 1.8 million international travelers spent two nights on average at Nigeria's estimated 10,000 hotel rooms every year. This generated in the past year about 210 million US dollars for that industry, which barely reflects on Nigeria's 500 billion US dollars GDP size. Nigeria's hotel industry alone is projected to grow double digits up to 2020, as a sector bounces back post-recession to one of the fastest growing in the world. The possibilities for investors, of course, is significant. Major international hotel brands have obviously recognized the enormous opportunities with the likes of Hilton, Marriott, Weston, Sheraton, Radisson and Best Western scheduled to open new hotels in Nigeria over the next three to five years. In real estate, projects such as the Echo Atlantic City Project in Lagos, which has been dubbed Africa's Dubai, offering 10 million square meters of multi-billion dollar grade A real estate investments are also opportunities worthy of note. The project is entirely privately owned, but it is supported by both the federal and the Lagos state governments. In June 2016, Lagos state government went into partnership with Dubai Holdings LLC to build Africa's first smart city in Lagos. Upon completion, the project is expected to attract several billions of dollars in investments to Lagos, create thousands of jobs and transform the alleged leaky access in Lagos state of Nigeria, in particular, and the entire state. The new city will be the world's first carbon neutral city. In Abuja, a real estate development company also, the Land of Honey Abuja Development Company, in partnership with the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja, is pioneering Nigeria's first private new city development project. It's called the Land of Honey City, Younger in Abuja. The company is also poised to deliver a world-class mixed-use new city, occupying a land area of approximately 1,667 hectares. In the same vein, the UAE continues to serve as an inspiration for business in Nigeria. The Oceana Residences, a multi-million dollar real estate development in Lagos, Nigeria, was designed by the architects behind the famous Dubai Marina here in Dubai. All these exciting new developments are supported by a thriving construction sector with steady sources of cement manufactured locally. Aliko Dangote, BUA or Boa Group and Lafarge are examples of some of the indigenous cement industry and several other companies, WEMCO for example, is also an indigenous company specializing in building materials. Aliko Dangote is an excellent example with investments in cement manufacturing in 10 other African countries. In 2014, the Sovereign Fund Investment Corporation of Dubai, ICD, bought a 1.4% stake in Dangote cement for 300 million US dollars. Of course it's an open secret that Nigerians love shopping and Dubai is a favorite destination for thousands of Nigerian shoppers from the popular Deira market to your world-class malls all over Dubai. Similarly, with our teaming population and market size, there are investment opportunities for malls and shopping centers across the country. To butter this fact, retail space in Nigeria reached 326,958 square meters in 2017 compared to just 30,000 square meters in 2005. From just two shopping malls in Lagos and Ambuja 13 years ago, the country now has several malls such as the Palms flagship mall in Lagos, the Jaby Lake Mall in Ambuja, the Keja City Mall, and the Maryland Mall also in Lagos. Novarie malls, Hub, Mart, among others in Portacort, in Ibado, in Elori, Oweri, and UNITION, all of which are commercially viable in those densely populated cities across the country. Novarie Real Estate Africa, an investment portfolio company involved in property development across Africa, has just recently opened its $54 million Novarie Central Mall in Wusei Zone 5, that's also in Ambuja. Shoprite, a South African supermarket chain, has supermarkets now, large supermarkets in 12 states of Nigeria. This is one of the sectors with great potential when compared to South Africa, for example, which is Africa's largest retailer company with 23 million square meters, but has a lower GDP and a population less than a fourth of Nigeria's. Little wonder then that mall holdings, a UAE business, the mall holdings is a Dubai conglomerate, is investing $40 million to transform the 30,000 square meters of the Lagos National Theater into a shopping mall. The Nigerian creative industry, I'm sure most of us have also heard, is particularly involved with Dubai and several fashion houses here in Dubai and several other high-end fashion industry and has had long informal links with Dubai for sourcing of fabric and other clothing inputs. More recently, in entertainment, one of Nollywood's, and Nollywood is our equivalent of Hollywood, by the way, and one of Nollywood's highest-grossing movies, The Wedding Party 2, produced by Nigeria's renowned entertainment guru, Mo Abudu of Ebony Life and directed by a lady called Kemi Aditiba, is evidence of the successful collaboration between Nigerian filmmakers and Dubai local partners such as the Dubai Tourism, Ammani, Atlantis, The Palm, Gaia Grande and Palazzo Besachi Hotels, all of these collaborated with the producers of The Wedding Party 2. The movie made an initial 73 million naira on the opening weekend, the highest record by Nigeria movie to date, and by day five had earned 100 million, eventually the movie grossed about half a billion naira worldwide, making a decent profit of over 170 million naira. Agriculture perhaps remains one of the best investment opportunities in Nigeria. Only three years ago, we were importing $5 million of rice every single day. Today, we produce 10 million metric tons of paddy rice annually, and we're importing only 2% of our rice consumption now. So the point we're making is that investing in agriculture in Nigeria is certainly worthwhile. Investments in milling capacity has risen astronomically since then. One investor in rice milling has just recently invested in a million tons of rice mill capacity. There's a medical farmer, Carlos Farms, whose farmer in vegetables, especially bananas and pineapples, and he had initially planned to grow bananas and pineapples for export until he discovered that he was making far more money selling his bananas locally at $3 per kilogram, instead of what you'd have earned a dollar per kilogram if you had exported the same bananas. So the point of the matter, of course, is that with the share size of our population, just serving the local market alone is a tremendous commercial opportunity all by itself. With a substantial percentage of the world's arable land and over half of that uncultivated, it is becoming clearer that the world will be looking to Africa and Nigeria in particular as its food basket in the coming years just to take China's demand alone. China has 27% of the world's population, but only 7% of the world's arable land for agriculture. China needs 2 million tons of hybrid soil beans per annum for livestock feed and vegetable oil, and we have not met that demand, not Nigeria, not anywhere else in Africa. Sesame seed is also in high demand, about 2 million tons per annum is the demand from China alone. Vietnam, Japan and several Arab countries, sesame seed oil and cake is used for confectionaries. That demand is largely unmet. China also requires over 2.3 million tons of cassava chips and cassava products for industrial starch and ethanol, and we've not been able to meet that demand, not even the demand for cocoa. How about goat meat? Nigerians are very familiar with goat meat. 20,000 cacuses of goat meat is required weekly in different countries, especially Arab countries, and there is still a major gap in supply there as well. Most of Vietnam's demand for over 2.5 million tons of cassava is unmet. We can export practically everything we are producing today, and we will not even scratch the surface of the demand from that one country. Nigeria's role as food provider to the world, and especially in the next few decades, is clear, is difficult, and I say this with emphasis, not to be tremendously successful as an investor in agriculture in Nigeria. I'm sure Mr. Maduka, Costa Rican Maduka will also be able to say great things about the rice, his rice investment in Nigeria. Similarly, Nigeria's ICT sector has attracted numerous international investments with proven successes from fintech and e-commerce to education to health, media, and logistics, with Dubai being at the cutting edge of both technology as a future city, as well as the financial capital of the Middle East. You are well placed to take advantage of the very many opportunities that are available. The sector, including the communication sector, accounts for 9% of Nigeria's GDP and has doubled in size over the past 7 years in particular. With over 163 million mobile phone subscribers, 60% of them actively on the internet, and 23 million on Facebook. You'll agree with me that our ICT sector is one of limitless potential and is, of course, yearning for more investments to propel the sector to an $88 billion digital economy, $88 billion US dollars, that is, digital economy, over the next 10 years. In broadband infrastructure, for example, Maine One Company, which was founded by a Nigerian-born lady, Funke Opeke, launched West Africa's first privately owned submarine cable barely seven years ago. The cable was built over a two-year period and the initial investment of $240 million was financed entirely by African investors and the project broke even in just two years after its launch. Today, companies such as Flutterwave, a payment solutions company, and Della, a software development engineering company, Jobman, an online human resource company, and Konga, an online mall, some may be familiar with all of these names, are poignant examples of how young Nigerian entrepreneurs are using technology disruptively to create profit in various business lines. So both in the infrastructure end and the retail end of that infrastructure, there are tremendous opportunities, and evidently the smart money all over the world is paying attention. For example, Flutterwave saw an investment of $10 million, Konga, an impressive $25 million, the second largest amount raised by an African startup business on the continent, and Della, another of our leading technology brands, attracted equity investments from Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. The Lagos Mega City is also an example of the proven successes and the great potential of ICTs in Nigeria, with its high quality and relatively lower cost talent, as well as a strong community of incubators, accelerators, and development communities. Lagos witnessed over a hundred million US dollars of local and international venture capital in 2017 alone. As government were committed to supporting the sector by resolving the known challenges of insufficient digital infrastructure, and also having the right policy and regulatory framework, in the technology space where deepening broadband connectivity, with over 3,250 kilometers of fiber optic cable laid in the major cities. We've grown from 6% to 22% broadband access in the last two and a half years. We are licensing regional infracores to provide open access to fiber at controlled rates, and we are addressing the right-of-way on structured taxation challenge through a standardization model. In other words, we're ensuring that because Nigeria is a federation of 36 states, each to some extent autonomous, we're ensuring that laying cables, laying fiber optic cables, or any other type of infrastructure across state lines does not mean paying different rates across state lines. So we're ensuring that there is a standardization of whatever payments, and we've agreed with all of the state authorities to ensure that our rates are cheap and affordable so that it does not in any way hinder the investments that are to come. Our administration's strong leadership commitment to good governance has proved to be a critical where our economy has reported successes have demonstrated in recent years that good governance and prudent management of resources means that you can do more with far less. We have despite almost 60% less revenues invested so far 1.3 trillion Naira in capital expenditure. That's the highest in the nation's history. The current wisdom is in letting the private sector invest wherever it can and in practically any sector of the economy, even in those that once carried the halo of national security assets such as telecoms and power investments are open in practically any of the various sectors of the economy. Consequently, we have seen the emergence of dynamic pan-African investors who on account of their track record are even able to borrow commercially cheaper than governments. The dangote investment, for example, in a 650,000 barrel a day refinery, a subsea pipeline, the fertilizer plant is in excess of 16 billion US dollars. BOA, which is also a cement and sugar conglomerate, has in the past two years invested 2 billion dollars in cement factories and enhancing the sugar facility. We're also utilizing the special economic zones which will provide all the required infrastructure and regulatory facilitation to deliver expedited productivity. Our oil and gas free zones have over 20 billion in fresh investments already. Again, these zones allow 100% foreign ownership and 100% repatriation of capital and profits. A good example of that is the Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics Free Zone, LADO, the Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics Free Zone, which has invested already over 600 million US dollars in private investments and has outlined plans to attract more investments of up to 5 billion US dollars into the country through its industrial free zones. Although the sizes of investments differ, the subtext is the same. The confidence of both domestic and foreign investors in the opportunities available in the country is very clear and is demonstrated day by day. One of the most important policy decisions taken by President Muhammad Ibrahim was to do all that was possible to improve Nigeria's business environment and attractiveness to investors on an incremental basis. This was critical, especially as we urgently needed to reform our economy, to focus on agriculture, on manufacturing, on services, on ICT and other non-oil economic activities. We had learned a hard lesson. Falling oil prices in 2015, going into 2016, low production on account of restiveness in the Niger Delta had led to a recession and the consequence, of course, of over-dependence on oil had brought us to a recession, especially in the prior 2016 and almost half of the first quarter of 2017. Consequently, the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, I just repeat that, Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, which I'll call it Pebek for short, was inaugurated in July 2016 as the administration's flagship initiative to reform the business environment, attract investments and diversify the economy to reduce our dependence and reliance on oil. The Pebek, which I have the privilege of chairing, was run by an incredible team led by Dr Jumoke Oduwale, who is on this trip with me, I believe she's already made a presentation, has undertaken strategic business environmental reforms at cross-bord using a 60-day national action plan as short-term accelerators to deliver impact. We focused on several key areas of reform, especially using the World Bank's doing business methodology and the particular areas that the World Bank focuses on in assessing the business environment. This include making it easier to register businesses, speed in obtaining construction permits, the ease of accessing credit for business, the ease of paying taxes, the ease of being connected to electricity, trading across borders and facilitating entry and exit, ease of registering property and enforcement contracts. And we have two homegrown indicators of our own, entry and exit of people and trading within Nigeria. Through systemic changes, we are repositioning regulators, all of our regulators, the regulators in all aspects of business, as facilitators of business, and we're seeing a steadily improving transparency and efficiency of service delivery by the public sector. Reforms focused on automation of services to eliminate manual procedures and promote online procedures, reducing the cost and time for certain processes to be completed, reducing paperwork and increasing transparency, and just some of the examples of what we're trying to achieve. Practical examples of success include leveraging the use of technology to fast track business registration to 24 hours and electronic filing and payment of taxes, a functioning tried and tested 48 hour electronic visa procedure, and an executive order mandating greater transparency and efficiency across all government agencies. The reforms have led to reduction in cost and time as well as greater transparency for small and medium sized enterprises, in particular. These reforms delivered immediate improvement. On the World Bank's 2018 Eve of Doing Business report, released in October 2017, Nigeria moved up 24 places from the 169th position to 145, and was recognized as one of the 10 most reformed business climates in the world. The reforms are complemented by a welcoming attitude to investment, to properly guide investors and make it easier for them to access required information. The National Investment Promotion Commission, or NIPC, recently released a Compedium of Investment Incentives in Nigeria. One of those incentives is that we offer a pioneer status tax holiday of up to five years for qualifying businesses. We also have tax incentives for research and development, and export incentives as well. We've also developed a hand holding strategy for investors who are having difficulties with rolling out on account of bureaucratic or other technical constraints. For a period of six weeks between March and April, that is March and April this year, 2018, we implemented an innovative scheme for fast tracking investment implementation by a series of engagements between all decision makers in government and potential investors in what we described as focus laboratories or focus labs. Now, this involves sitting in the same room day after day where investors and relevant ministers, regulators and heads of power status jointly working together to resolve bottlenecks and obstacles in the way of investments. I was also present at several of the sessions of the focus labs to encourage everyone along and to see that things were moving forward. This proved to be tremendously successful. From July 2017, the Pebeck focused on collaborating with the states of the Federation, with the 36 states of our Federation, to implement the reforms introduced at the national levels to improve the business environment at the state level. We've chosen in particular two states to begin with, Lagos and Cano, and the result has been phenomenal. So Lagos and Cano have also tried, and these are the major commercial cities, have also tried to implement the same national, the same national incentives, the same national reforms which were put in place. And that has shown tremendous results. Significant legislative and judicial reform has also been achieved working closely with the National Assembly and the judiciary. In 2017, Pebeck's collaboration with the National Assembly delivered two acts, two laws, for enabling access to credit, which was a very vital requirement for small and medium enterprises. This year, the Companies and Allied Matters Bill, which is a company law legislation, has been repealed and reenacted by the Senate and is currently awaiting passage by the House of Representatives. This promises to be revolutionary in so many different ways, especially as it takes into account the digital economy and how to regulate the digital economy in a manner that does not get in the way of business. The judiciary has also proved to be a strong partner in reforming dispute resolution and settlement, a key factor for investors. Legal State in April 2018 commissioned the Small Claims Court to handle commercial claims which are liquidated money demands of up to $15,000 and below. Adjudication of cases before the Small Claims Court up to judgment is expected to take a maximum period of 60 days. Cano State has also recently passed a new Magistrate Courts Law which will see the designation of Small Claims Courts in the State very shortly. Consented efforts are being made towards also upgrading our current trade portal to a more robust national trading platform. This encompasses a more sophisticated single-window platform with scanners and a port community portal for goods being imported into and exported out of Nigeria. Recently, the Federal Executive Council approved the concession of Nigerians international airports in Lagos and Abuja to ensure that Nigeria is workplace as a regional hub for investors and business travelers. To deepen our business reforms, the very first executive order of our administration was signed in 2017 on transparency and efficiency in the public service to deliver the impact of completed reforms in the frontline offices that engage with the public by fostering collaboration between our MDAs, the ministries and the agencies and the power status in their service delivery and institutionalizing systemic changes in a sustainable manner. The intervention has been acknowledged as one of the Federal Government's most innovative strategic initiatives and a blueprint to deliver quick pragmatic changes for Nigerians and for our investors. When fully implemented, that executive order will radically transform the way the Federal Government, its ministries, departments and agencies serve the business community and the public at large. Our vision is a dramatic improvement in Nigeria's business environment with increased cross-border trading, increased productive activity across economic sectors and an improved business environment that is attractive to both domestic and foreign investors where policies are predictable and consistent with public and private civil servants as well as partners and our partners, our facilitators as opposed to obstacles or adverse regulators. Our overarching goal is to make Nigeria a major global investment destination by continually and incrementally implementing improvements and reforms in our business environment that will be visible, not merely in numerical rankings but in the stories and testimonials of business owners and entrepreneurs across the entire country. We're devoted to that particular pathway and it is, as you can imagine, a process which involves doing things differently, changing existing ways of doing things. It has been slow but it has gone very quickly especially in the past year and a half and we expect that the incremental changes will make a huge difference in the entire business environment as we go forward. I'd like to thank you very much for listening. Thank you.