A student of Chinese University of Hong Kong on study tour to Nigeria has lamented the high cost of living and doing business in Nigeria.

Xu Jiang, an Urban and Regional Planning student who was among the students on the tour complained that the high cost will discourage investors. Mr. Jiang made the assertion while on a visit to the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission on Monday at Abuja.

More expensive than Hong Kong

“We are coming from Hong Kong considered to be one of the most expensive cities in the world but Hong Kong government is talking about how to reduce the cost of living in order to attract more investment,” he said. “Coming to Nigeria, one question we are talking about is that we found the consumer goods or the cost of living here is probably and actually in all aspects more expensive than that in Hong Kong.

We just want to understand why, what is the major reason of being one the most expensive cities in the world. We just want to understand why because you have your own manufacturing industry, you have your own agriculture and may be importing some goods but in Hong Kong we import some goods also but it is not as expensive as the price of goods here. We want to understand why, what is the major reason.”

Government on top of it

Mustafa Bello, executive secretary of the commission, said government was addressing the high cost of doing business through the various reform programmes set up. He added that when the reform was completed, Nigeria will compete favourably with other countries in terms of investment while noting that despite the challenges, investors in the country smile to the banks all the time because return on investment in the country is high.

The team was led by Lawal Marafa, a Nigerian teaching in the Chinese University, who hinted that the visit provides their students the opportunity to understand more about the country; the landscape, the climate conditions, and the economic activities as part of their field study programmes where the students are expected to visit three countries before graduation.