Foreign investors in Nigeria’s mining sector will be given a customs and import duty waiver for plant, machinery and equipment imported for mining operations, a senior official said.
They will receive tax holidays of three to five years, Olamilekan Adegbite, the country’s minister of mines and steel development, said in a virtual address at the fifth annual Nigerian Mining Week.
“We have institutionalized business-friendly incentives to further make the Nigerian mining sector more attractive to foreign investors,” he said.
Mr. Adegbite said the incentives include free transferability of funds and permission to retain and use earned foreign exchange, capital allowances of up to 95% of qualifying capital expenditure, while money used for implementing environmentally friendly measures will be tax free.
He said Nigeria has more than 40 different mineral types in commercial quantities in more than 500 locations across the country’s 36 states, including strategic minerals such as bitumen, lignite and uranium and metallic ore minerals such as gold, cassiterite, columbite, iron ore, lead-zinc and copper.
Mr. Adegbite highlighted coal, iron ore, bitumen, gold, limestone, lead-zinc and barite as being ripe for immediate development. Strategic minerals such as titanium and cobalt, vital for technology such as telecoms and electric vehicles manufacturing, will also be in focus, he said.
