The Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) has called on American investors to partner with Nigeria in strengthening its free trade zones, with a focus on job creation, export expansion, and industrial competitiveness.
Managing Director of NEPZA, Dr. Olufemi Ogunyemi, made the appeal 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 Nigeria’s free zones were designed as practical business enclaves for industrial upgrading and regionally scalable investments. He urged U.S. investors to undertake site visits to facilities such as Lagos Free Zone, Lekki Free Zone, and Abuja Industrial Park Free Zone to assess existing infrastructure and anchor tenants.
According to him, NEPZA is seeking anchor projects that would transform into small and medium enterprise factory shells, promote local procurement content, and generate employment. He added that opportunities also exist for co-financing shared infrastructure to enable tenant investments and expand production for exports.
“We are ready to support due diligence, provide regulatory clarity, and facilitate structures for investors willing to move from dialogue to commitments,” Ogunyemi said, stressing that NEPZA had adopted world-class mechanisms to raise industrial competitiveness through infrastructure, regulatory predictability, cluster effects, and market access.
He noted that the Federal Government would continue to prioritise private capital in building free zone infrastructure, whether through private-led or public-private partnership models, describing the zones as engines of rapid economic transformation.
Ogunyemi urged investors to see Nigeria’s vast domestic market as a springboard for regional expansion and international exports. He also commended the Presidency for including NEPZA in Nigeria’s UNGA delegation and acknowledged the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) for creating platforms to attract U.S. investors into the free zones.
