Charles Ajunwa
11 November 2009
London — Director-General, Nigerian Tourism Development Corpo-ration (NTDC), Otunba Segun Runsewe, has called on foreign investors to come to Nigeria and invest in any sector of the economy, saying the country is safe for business.
He also said the federal, state and local governments takesecurity as a priority, to ensure that lives, properties and businesses are well secured. Runsewe, who disclosed these in an exclusive interview with THISDAY, at the ongoing World Travel Market, the premier global event for travel and tourism industry in London, said all the major airlines now fly into Nigeria, which is atestimony to the fact that the country has become a destination for good business.Nigeria's participation at the worldwide travel and tourismexhibitions, according to Runsewe, is another image packaging for the country which was already making positive impact, as foreigners are rushing to the Nigerian stand to make enquiries about business prospects in the country.
Runsewe said, "basically, we have taken the initiative of marketing Nigeria to the level of getting the major investors coming into the country. The World Travel Market is the biggest and the largest market of travel and tourism industry all over the world, and Nigeria's appearance here isto open our doors to promote Nigeria and market Nigeria, in order to get more investors to come into Nigeria. But I can tell you, even before the show started on Monday, with the wonderful stand we have at this exhibition, we have received a lot of enquiries.
"You can see it yourself, our stand is the only African stand with a storey building with a perfect finishing, colourful stand. And you can also see that everybody is wearing the Nigerian jacket, the Nigerian tie made with our own material. We are promoting Nigeria from every possible area tomake sure that people can feel free and be happy for being here."
For the first time, we have over 12 private sector people on ground. We have over 19 states and we are encouraging the up coming business people in Nigeria to take advantage of this exhibition to market their products to the world. Like the woman you see there, she just run a magazine and we brought her here to see how magazines are being run, so that she can go back home and put it into practice. So, these are someof the new initiatives and we are running it in strong partnership with other Africans in having a vision and focus for very strong strength of tourism development in Africa."
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