INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN ABIA STATE
Abia State is a peripheral oil producing State in the South-Eastern part of Nigeria, and with a large expansive arable land for various agricultural products. It’s key assets are its highly educated citizens, and its enterprising and innovative artisans and commercial entrepreneurs. Its large and concentrated urbanized people can best be described as farmers, general goods- merchants, and manufacturers of consumer products with indigenous technology and culture.
As the process of the deepening of democracy continues to take firm root in Abia State; as the State becomes one of the safest and most secured State in the Nigerian Federation; as the infrastructural development of the State grows in leaps, with the resultant inter-link between the rural and the urban centers, large structured markets for industrial and commercial products have emerged to cater for local needs.
All these have created new and urgent needs for increased investment opportunities to begin to take firm roots in the State, especially in the following areas:-
- 1.  Development of large scale Agricultural businesses, which take advantage of available fertile lands, existing agricultural plantations in the State, the presence of agricultural research institutions and centers located in the State. The areas of comparative advantage for foreign and local investment are in the production of cassava products – i.e: palates, chips, starch, ethanol refining and cassava flour. There are also palm oil productions and refining/blending and the allied chain products in that area. Opportunities also abound in cocoa processing and beverages, rice milling, fruit canning (mangoes, grapes, pineapple, cashew, citrus, oranges, paw-paw etc.
- 2.  Investment in mineral resources which abound in commercial quantities in Abia State and generally still untapped are in the following areas- Kaolin, galena, lignite, gypsum, tar-sand, phosphate, black marble, oil and gas(Ukwa), copper and gold(Ohafia and Bende), Barytes, silica and clay ( Isiala-Ngwa, Ukwa. Opportunities exist for investment in mining, processing and in quarrying activities.
- 3.  Investment opportunities also exist in areas of Tourism and Hospitality in the State to cater for the increasingly mobile population of the State.
- 4.  Huge opportunities abound in the area of Real- Estate for building and management of middle and high scale housing development, especially in the urban areas of the State.
- 5.  Another major area for investment opportunity in Abia State is in the harnessing of commercial and industrial market development, and in the manufacturing of large scale clothing and leather goods depots, which seem to have existing local setups in Aba, which can be further developed.
- 6.  With improving power supply in Abia State from the NIPP and Private Power stations such as the Geometrics in Abia State, the stage is now ripe for foreign investment in the Oil and Gas Sector of Ukwa, to further harvest and harness flared gas for feeding into local industries and house-hold use.
- 7.  Our State is also interested in ‘waste to wealth’ investments that can manage our domestic and industrial waste generated from our commercial city of Aba and its environs, as a result of the many cottage industries and markets located there. We require industrial partnership investment to manage our waste for both productive use and containment of associated hazards.
- 8.  Abia State is focused on developing its educational tourist potentials and capacity building. We require partnership with educational institutions in Canada for exchange programmes of students and personnel in tertiary institutions.
Abia State is now ready to host successful and profitable direct foreign investments in the State and the potentials are enormous.
Thank you
CHIEF T. A. ORJI (OCHENDO)
GOVERNOR
