Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said Monday his government will create programmes that will encourage more foreign investments into Africa's most populous country, his office said.
"We have a growing population of young people and as a government we have an enormous responsibility to plan and prepare for their future," Jonathan said during separate meetings with outgoing ambassadors of China and Netherlands.
"Greater foreign investment will clearly help us in creating more gainful employment for our youths and we will do all we can to promote it," he said in a presidential statement.
He said Nigeria was now opening its doors to foreign investors more than ever before.
Jonathan said sectors like aviation, power supply and the development of infrastructure, previously run by the government, were now open to private investors from within and outside the country.
He assured the envoys that his government was doing everything possible to deal with all issues discouraging foreign investors, saying that significant progress was being made in restoring peace to the oil-rich but volatile Niger Delta.
Officials said retraining and rehabilitation of thousands of former militants who last year surrendered their arms to embrace a government amnesty was due to begin this week in southern Cross River state.
Netherlands Ambassador Van der Wiel said in his remarks that the annual volume of trade between his country and Nigeria grew from two billion dollars when he arrived in 2006 to four billion.
Chinese envoy Xu Jiango said the volume of trade between Nigeria and China now stood at about seven billion dollars, up from three billion in 2006.
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