By Kingsley Adegboye

NIgerite Limited, a foremost name in the building materials sub-sector of the Nigerian economy and other stakeholders in the building industry last week converged in Lagos to brainstorm and exchange ideas on investment opportunities available on the African continent at the just concluded 6th Nigerian Real Estate Fair with the theme “Investment Opportunities in Real Estate and Construction in Africa’s second Largest Economy”.

The two-day fair was a capacity building platform aimed at unveiling numerous investment opportunities hidden in the real estate and construction sector of the national economy.

According to Mr. Abimbola Banjo, Technical Sales Manager, Nigerite, the annual fair is a platform to create awareness for latest innovative products in the building industry and to exchange new business ideas that can move the sector forward. He said the aim of Nigerite at this year’s event is to target both the professionals and non-professionals in the industry to get them know their latest products in the market.

He noted that Soe Properties, organiser of the fair, has been doing a great work to put the fair together over the last six years, adding that Nigerite will continue to support the Nigerian Real Estate Fair in the years to come.

In his address at the opening ceremony, Mr. Olisa Ebigwei, the Convener and Managing Director of Soe Properties, said the fair represents a platform for bringing professionals together to brain storm and discover potentials in the construction industry.

“The Nigerian Real Estate Fair, an advocacy and capacity building platform was born six year ago, and the summary of the past six years of the fair has been a strenuous work for all us. The platform has been on a mission using different strategies to get across to the stakeholders in the industry.

“Last year’s edition was tagged ‘Bridging the housing gap through public partnership’ which engender cooperation between the government and the organised private sector on delivering affordable housing to Nigerians”, Ebigwei noted.

He said reports from National Bureau of Statistics and World Bank which have been bandied around for over five years showed that Nigeria has 16 million housing stock deficit, pointing out that this means that there are investment opportunities in the manufacturing and importation of building components like roofing sheet, cement, iron rods, equipment and others.

He therefore advised that stakeholders in the sector should exchange ideas, create new business relationships and advocate new policies that will engender housing for all Nigerians, not forgetting to check the building systems, building technologies and materials to see if they are meeting world standard.