The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) said it is looking at the possibility of collecting information from about 10,000 African companies in its investor's survey currently going on in 20 African countries.

The director, UNIDO Vietnam made the remarks in Abuja at the 2010 EXCO/AGM of the Investment Promotion Agencies of West African States (IPAWAS) which was hosted by the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC).

He said the whole idea of the survey is to begin the process of a new culture in investment promotion, adding that all kinds of data from investors, both foreign and domestic, in each of the 20 countries will be collected.

"These kind of data have not been colleted anywhere. We will follow and monitor the companies for a number of years and see exactly what is happening to them. We hope NIPC and its equivalent in other African countries will use the information in the survey in designing policies that are relevant," he said.

He said the data obtained from the survey will be consolidated on the investment monitoring platform which is an interactive web-based portal that will allow all relevant stakeholders to benefit from the data and analysis.

He said the investment monitoring platform which will become the primary business portal for Africa, will bring about closer interaction between the private and the public sectors.

"It will increase visibility of investors to potential business partners and create opportunities for other business collaborations, promote evidence-based policy formulation and policy management," he said.