Doing Business in Nigeria
(Federal Ministry of Finance Abuja, Nigeria)

• General
• Guidelines on Foreign Investment Inflow
• The Nigerian Financial System
• Recent Developments in the Nigerian Financial System.

General

A non-Nigeria can invest and participate in the operation of any enterprise defined as industry, project, undertaking or business with the provision that the enterprise concerned is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission after its incorporation under the Companies and Allied Matters Decree 1990.

Direct foreign investment in Nigeria can also be effected by means of a foreign enterprise/company buying in any convertible foreign currency, the shares of any Nigerian Enterprises through the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Direct foreign investment in any enterprise in Nigeria is guaranteed and enjoys unconditional transferability of funds in respect of such dividends or profits, payments, remittance and obligations.

The transfer of funds shall, however, be done through an authorised dealer in freely convertible currency;

Direct foreign investment in any enterprise in Nigeria is guaranteed against expropriation.

They will not be nationalised or expropriated by the Nigerian Government or be acquired by the Federal Government of Nigeria, even if it is in the national interest or for public purpose so to do, without payment of fair and adequate compensation as well as granting the right of access of the investor concerned to the courts for the determination of the investor's interest or right and of the amount of such compensation to which the investor is entitled. Payment of such compensation shall be done without undue delay, and authorisation shall, where applicable, be issued in respect of the repatriation, in convertible currency.

Direct foreign investment is accorded equitable treatment through the operation, by the Nigerian Government, of an investment dispute settlement instrument which enables disputes between an investor and the Government (as parties to the dispute) to be settled through resort to local remedies and

• Nigeria's Arbitration and Reconciliation Decree of 1988;
• bilateral and multi-lateral agreements;
• other national or international machinery for settlement of investment disputes and which the parties agree to utilise for the purpose of settling a dispute; and
• the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Dispute Rules;

  Direct foreign investment is encouraged, as much as home investment in specified priority area of industry and products, through the provision, by the Nigerian Government, of applicable incentives and benefits in respect of investment.

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