President Goodluck Jonathan will on Monday embark on a working visit to Switzerland and Ethiopia.
Jonathan returned to the country on Saturday from Cote d’Ivoire where he attended an Extraordinary Session of the Economic Community of West African States Authority of Heads of State and Government.
Presidential spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati, in a statement on Sunday said Jonathan’s itinerary during this latest trip would include engagements in Geneva and Davos, devoted to drawing the attention of more members of the international business finance community to Nigeria’s investment potentials.
Abati said Jonathan would at a meeting with an Eminent Persons Group on Nigeria’s Transformation Agenda in Geneva on Tuesday lead a drive to attract greater foreign expertise and capital to boost the Federal Government’s efforts to rapidly modernise and positively transform Nigeria’s agricultural sector.
Members of the group, according to him include Mr. Bill Gates; former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr. Kofi Annan; President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Dr. Kanayo Nwanze; President of the Africa Development Bank, Mr. Donald Kaberuka; and the Chairman of the Del Monte Produce Group, Mr. Mohammed Abu-Ghazaleh.
He added that the President would at a special session of the annual meeting of the world’s leading businessmen and industrialists at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday also promote new incentives for investment in Nigeria’s agricultural sector.
This, he explained, was targeted at attracting greater international support for the establishment of a more successful and profitable agro-allied industry in the country.
He said the session would also focus on ongoing policy and institutional reforms in the sector, the establishments of staple crop processing zones and medium to long term financing options for agriculture in Nigeria.
Abati said on Thursday, Jonathan would host a private session with representatives of leading multinational companies under the auspices of the Business Interactive Group on Nigeria.
He will be accompanied by the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Adewunmi Adesina; Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; Minister of National Planning, Dr. Shamsudeen Usman; Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke; Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga; and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
Abati added that the President would also seize the opportunity of his participation in special sessions of the World Economic Forum titled ‘De-Risking Africa’ and ‘Africa’s Promise,’ to draw fresh global attention to the opportunities which ongoing reforms and deregulation, privatisation and commercialisation of former public sector monopolies have opened up for willing investors in key sectors of the Nigerian economy such as oil and gas, power supply, communications, transportation and agriculture.
Jonathan will meet privately with the Prime Ministers of the Netherlands and Norway, the President of Costa Rica and the Chief Executive Officers of the Huawei Technologies Company, Total and Coca-Cola Worldwide on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.
He is expected to leave Switzerland on Friday for the African Union Summit of Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa where he will confer with other African leaders on action to resolve the boundary dispute between Sudan and South Sudan as well as fresh and ongoing initiatives to restore peace, security, political stability and normalcy to Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This is Jonathan’s third foreign trip this year, having attended the inauguration of the Ghanaian President, John Mahama, earlier in the year.