The Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) has called for partnerships with American investors to enhance Nigeria’s free trade zones, expand exports, and create jobs.
The Managing Director of NEPZA, Dr. Olufemi Ogunyemi, made the appeal in a statement on Friday while delivering a lecture on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.
The lecture, titled “Free Zones and Industrial Competitiveness: Catalysing Investment Through Regulatory Innovation,” was part of a side event themed “Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria: A New Era of Economic Opportunities.”
Ogunyemi said the forum provided a vital platform to match policy action with private capital. “Nigeria’s free zones are designed as practical business enclaves for industrial upgrading and credible, regionally scalable investments. We are therefore asking U.S. investors and institutions to undertake site visits to Lagos Free Zone, Lekki Free Zone, Abuja Industrial Park Free Zone and other zones to see existing infrastructure and anchor tenants,” he stated.
According to him, NEPZA is seeking partnerships for anchor projects that would transform into small and medium enterprises’ factory shells, create jobs, and promote local procurement content. He explained that opportunities also exist for co-financing shared infrastructure to enable tenant investments and scale up production for exports.
He reaffirmed NEPZA’s readiness to support due diligence, provide regulatory clarity, and facilitate structures for investors willing to move from dialogue to signed commitments. He added that the authority had applied world-class mechanisms to strengthen the industrial competitiveness of the free zones through infrastructure development, regulatory predictability, cluster effects, and market access.
Ogunyemi emphasized that the Federal Government, through NEPZA, would continue to prioritize private capital in building infrastructure in both private and public-private partnership free zones, describing them as principal engines of rapid transformation. He urged investors to view Nigeria’s vast market as a springboard for regional expansion and international exports.
He also expressed gratitude to the Presidency for including NEPZA in Nigeria’s UNGA delegation, and to the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) for providing a platform to attract U.S. investors into the free zones.
