Foreign investors needed to grow Ebonyi’s economy, says ambassador

Nigeria’s Ambassador to Argentina, Chief Jonah Odo-Mkpuruka, has said that foreign investors are needed to grow the Ebonyi economy, promising to  help attract foreign investors to the state.

Odo-Mkpuruka said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abakaliki that Ebonyi could become a business hub in Nigeria, if the state’s economic potentials were adequately harnessed.

According to him, the state’s solid mineral and agriculture sectors have yet to be fully harnessed, adding that foreign investments in the two key sectors would enhance its economic development.

Odo-Mkpuruka, who is also the Nigeria Ambassador to Uruguay, Peru and Bolivia, promised to ensure that Nigerians in the four countries under his mandate were not maltreated by their host countries.

“Our first priority is to effectively represent the Federal Republic of Nigeria and to project the good image of our dear country in these countries.

“We will encourage foreign investors to invest in Nigeria and in particular, we will bring them to come and invest in our solid minerals and agriculture sectors.

“Ebonyi is richly endowed with solid minerals and fertile land for rice, yam and cassava production; we are going to bring them to open up these areas, to create job opportunities for our people.

“We are going to engage the foreign investors and make sure that we attract enough foreign investment that will assist in developing the economy of our state.

“The Federal Government has enabling foreign economic policies to drive our initiative and we must key into this to create wealth for our people, ” Odo-Mkpuruka said.

He commended the anti-graft war of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration and appealed to Nigerians to support the President in his bid to reposition the country.

“We must all rise in support of the ongoing war against financial corruption if the country must move forward because the greatest hindrance to our development is financial corruption and the the president has enormous political will to stamp out financial corruption.”