TheCable

The Kaduna government says it attracted $1.5 million worth of foreign investment in 2021.

Kaduna Investment Promotion Agency (KADIPA) disclosed this in a statement issued on Tuesday.

The statement faulted the recent capital importation report of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

On Monday, citing the NBS report, TheCable reported that Kaduna is one of the 24 states in Nigeria that attracted zero foreign direct investment — as capital importation into Nigeria fell by 30.78 percent to $6.7 billion in 2021 from $9.68 billion in 2020.

But reacting to the report, the Kaduna investment agency said NBS did not account for the investment that came in via Zipline, a United States-based medical drone supply company.

“We wish to point out that Kaduna state’s capital importation for the year 2021 was not captured in the report and that the report similarly missed the attraction of Zipline, a United States-based medical drone supply company, whose business address is in Lagos state but are now operating in Kubau LGA of Kaduna state,” the statement reads.

#InvestKaduna The attention of the agency has been drawn to a report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for the four quarters of 2021, which included Kaduna State amongst the 24 states that failed to attract Foreign Direct Investment last year. pic.twitter.com/A6GOkmNNsY

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— KADIPA (@InvestKaduna) April 5, 2022

“As a medical product delivery company, Zipline will be operating in three sites when it rolls out fully and will serve entire health facilities in three senatorial districts of Kaduna.

“The company will minimize bottlenecks like bad roads, expiring of products due to over-stocking, unavailability of medical commodities at health facilities during emergencies and products not getting to remote areas in a timely manner.

“Given that Kaduna state had $1.5 million worth of investment in the said year, the state should not be in the list of states that had failed to attract FDIs in the year 2021.”

Reacting to the development, the NBS said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is the primary data source of the capital importation report.

“We only publish Capital Importation figures that are reported by the Central Bank,” it tweeted.