Nigeria’s manufacturing sector is facing dwindling foreign investor interest, with a staggering 87 per cent gap between capital inflows into the sector and the national total over the past 27 months.
An analysis of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) capital importation data from 2023 to the first quarter of 2025 shows that manufacturing received $2.85 billion in foreign investment, representing just 13.02 per cent of the $21.87 billion total capital inflows.
The figures mark a sharp drop in investor appetite compared to 2023, when manufacturing secured $1.29 billion out of $3.91 billion in total inflows — a 33.05 per cent share, leaving a smaller 66.95 percentage point gap.
Analysts say the widening gap underscores the sector’s struggle with persistent challenges such as high production costs, poor infrastructure, volatile exchange rates, and policy uncertainty.
Former President of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, Prof. Segun Ajibola, told The PUNCH that “nothing much is happening in the manufacturing sector because of the perennial challenges,” stressing that only stable macroeconomic conditions can restore investor confidence and trigger a rebound.
