Nigeria Wealth Fund Chief says investment plans unaffected by weak oil

 

Nigeria's sovereign wealth fund said its investment programme over the next six months, including on infrastructure, will go ahead, even as revenues that provide its capital are hit by falling oil prices.

Chief Executive of the Nigeria Investment AuthorityUche Orji, highlighted one of the vehicle's core aims is to manage oil export windfalls to cushion the economy in harder times.

Orji conceded that weakness in the international oil market would affect the fund but he remained focused on deploying existing assets to investment in infrastructure projects in sectors such as transport, power and healthcare.

Oil prices have dropped more than 25 percent since June on strong supply, signs of weak growth in demand and indications that key oil producers, particularly Saudi Arabia, have a limited appetite to cut output to bolster prices.

Nigeria, Africa's top oil producer and most populous nation, established the Sovereign Investment Authority (SIA) in 2011 with $1 billion of seed capital in an effort to manage oil export revenues.