The Lagos State Government, on Tuesday, received a major economic boost as the Kingdom of Belgium expressed readiness to expand bilateral ties with the State government in order to tap into the several investment opportunities that abound in the State.
The State Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mr. Sam Egube, while welcoming the Belgian Ambassador in Nigeria, Mr. Daniel Bertrand, to his office in Alausa, Ikeja, reiterated the State government’s resolve to improve the economy through effective partnership and collaboration on investment opportunities.
He said, “We are pleased to have you in Lagos, we believe that effective partnerships form the bedrock of development and, in line with the T.H.E.M.E.S. Agenda, Mr. Governor believes that we must have several levels of engagement and partnerships to make things work. So, one of the things we strive to do is to ensure that those partnerships go beyond talk into real definitive actions and as a result of this, we welcome you with a lot of excitement”.
“At the heart of it, we must attract investment and that means working very closely with the Federal Government, other State Governments and our developmental partners. We are quite alive to that responsibility. We are restructuring our development partnership department here in the Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget to make it more proactive in partnering with others to solve mutual problems. We will like to co-create with our development partners”, Egube said.
On his part, the Belgium Ambassador, Mr. Daniel Bertrand, said the purpose of his visit was to familiarise himself with Lagos and the various opportunities which will be presented to a delegation of Belgian business entrepreneurs, who are interested in doing business in the State, despite the already active Belgian business community in Nigeria.
He informed that a Belgian delegation would soon be in Lagos to explore investment opportunities in the Nigerian market.
His words: “One of the priorities of my term is to strengthen our bilateral ties in Nigeria, especially in the economic and commercial fields. It has a huge potential as there are some very active Belgian companies in Nigeria, like Nigerite. But I think we can be far more productive than we are now and that is why we are going to welcome in the next few months a delegation of business entrepreneurs coming to Nigeria to see what they can do here, as they are very interested in the Nigerian market and they will visit Abuja and Lagos soon”.
Other dignitaries in attendance include Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Belgium in Nigeria, Mr. Stef Commers; Special Adviser to the Governor on Economic Planning and Budget, Aare Adebayo Sodade; the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Economic Planning & Budget, Mrs. Abiola Liadi and Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Budget, Mr. Lekan Balogun, among others.
