Evago Global list benefits of impact investment conference in Nigeria

Evago Global list benefits of impact investment conference in Nigeria
By Kingsley Okoye
Investment
Abuja, July 4, 2018 (NAN) Evago Global, a multi-sector investment firm based in Latvia, says the scheduled impact investment conference tagged “Arise Africa’’ is designed to kick start the process of attaining sustainable growth in the African continent.
Mr Evans Osemwegie, the Chief Executive Officer of the company, said this while fielding questions at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja on Wednesday.
He said the conference became necessary given the huge potential that lies within African continent and the inadequate efforts invested to understand, categorise, differentiate and manage the investment processes in a systematic way.
“The key driver for this project is to know that a strong Africa is one that will transform the world, and will touch the world in a positive manner.
“This conference will highlight the fact and begin the process of managing and implementing good strong investments opportunities and good strong investment policies.
“I believe that the time is right, that is what is most important, for someone who has spoken to many investors, especially in Europe, a large challenge for them is yield.
“They are looking for good investment opportunities and they are looking for high yielding investment opportunities, and they have no time to push forward, the African investment narratives, and this conference allows us to do that.
“An impact investor is one who invests with a set of principles that add wider value to the society; this is what these investors are coming to discuss, because we have had investors and investment in the past.
“These were mostly in the extractive sector and this did not give any wider benefits to African society in general and this is what we would like to change,’’ he said.
According to him, the impact investment model is designed to increase local production and local capacity in the form of industrial machinery, processes equipment and knowledge transfer.
This, he said, would help create local jobs and businesses in Nigeria and other African nations.
He explained that the conference was also designed to evolve measures to promote inter-Africa trade, via addressing infrastructure issues, especially transportation, internal trade, customs barriers, free movement of capital and development of a strong institutional capital.
Besides, Osemwegie said the conference was meant to discuss measures to position Africa as leading partner in international trade that actively participates and shapes the global discourse on world trade and socio-economic trends.
According to him, coming of some multi-nationals corporation to the proposed conference scheduled to hold in November in Abuja will help transfer knowledge on investment, establish business models, global networks and international partners.
He said this would help local partners to scale up on investment procedures globally.
He said the participating 300 investors at the end of the three-day conference would sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that they all will adhere to at the initial stage of beginning their investments in the continent. (NAN)
KC/MST
Edited by Muhammad Suleiman Tola