Stakeholders have called for concerted efforts at enhancing Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) to restore local and foreign investors confidence in expanding investments and businesses in Rivers state.

At the breakout session of ongoing 18th Port Harcourt International Trade Fair happening at the Obi Wali International Cultural Centre, the State Government and private sector players identified the challenges and preferred solutions for restoring Rivers as an investors’ destination of choice.

Leading the conversation, the Rivers State Investment Promotion Agency (RSIPA) not that part of the challenge would be to change the false narrative over the years that the state is unsafe for investment.

Director-General of RSIPA, Chamberlain Peterside, stated, “We are not naive to believe that either by some form of magic we can suddenly turn the fortunes of the State and attract all the investments we desire. We are dealing with the perception risk that over several years branded the state as unsafe.

“We are also faced with the challenges of dealing with the lack of cohesion amongst MDAs, policy inconsistencies, multiple taxation, incessant harassment by miscreants, red tape and delays in obtaining operating permits, high cost of operations and opaque public sector.”

He said the Agency was not meant to dwell on challenges but to focus on actions, solutions and results, adding the commitment is about listening to investors and ensuring MDAs were carried along, the imperative for setting up of a RSIPA One-Stop-Center (OSC).

Senibo Joe Johnson, Rivers State Commissioner for Commerce and Trade who represented Governor Siminalayi Fubara, said the administration is all ears to the business community to see ways of reducing impediments to investments.

Johnson listed the stages of actions being undertaken by Governor Fubara as captured in the Governor’s blue print to revive the economy of Rivers State.

Housing investor, MyAce China called for an enabling law to replace the Executive Order that established RSIPA to insulate it from political instability and ease investors’ worry about its sustainability.

China, Chief Exevutive Officer, Housing and Construction Mayor Limited, owners of Alesa Highlands Smart City,
cautioned that before anything else, protecting already established businesses in the state is most crucial.

He said strengthening local investment is what attracts and promotes foreign investment in sync with the African proverb, ‘It’s the rat at home that reveals to the one in the bush that there is fish in the kitchen’.

‎‎China, also known as the Mayor of Housing said he discovered opportunities in Port Harcourt when he arrived the city and found it was locked out by information, not
‎promoting it’s own enough for investors to come in.

‎He urged Rivers State Government to borrow a leave from Abuja and adopt the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in dealing with land and property registration and documentation for ease of doing business by eliminating of land fraud.

‎He said, “We need to shout louder than Lagos because we need more investment than Lagos and we need the structural integrity of Abuja. When you marry both, Rivers State would be wonderful and become green with investments.”

Dr Chinyere Nwoga, chief host and President, Port Harcourt Chamber Of Commerce, Industry, Mines & Agriculture, PHCCIMA, called on the state government to tackle the menace of parked trucks now turning Trans-Amadi into a risk zone.

Outlined activities and goals of the PHCCIMA, Nwoga challenged investors and businesses to embrace Port Harcourt economic hub, affirming peace has returned.

Aisha Rimi, Executive Secretary/CEO Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC), represented by Mrs Lovina Kayode, Director, Investors Relations, pledged the body’s commitment to support businesses, local and foreign, in Rivers to grow.

Mrs Kayode commended the Mayor of Housing and Mr Oliver Biedima of Rainbow Heritage Group for their passion to invest in Rivers, a proof that the State was safe for investors and their investment.

‎‎She said NIPC was at the event to seek welfare of investors in that state, interfacing with them to solve their problems through interagency collaboration and the One-Stop-Shop in the NIPC, through the Aftercare Programme.