KPMG has endorsed the upcoming International Mining Investment Conference and Exhibitions on Nigeria (IMICON) scheduled to hold in Abuja on August 29-31, 2016.
The IMICON is Nigeria’s foremost private sector led initiative that provides the home-grown vibrancy required to boost Nigeria’s hope of becoming one of the world’s mineral developed economies.
In endorsing the 2016 IMICON Conference, Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, said he was pleased with the opportunities in holding the event.
He said: “I am pleased to endorse this conference which is timely and fits into our ministry’s strategic objectives of ensuring the alignment of all stakeholders towards a common vision for the repositioning of our mining sector.
He said :” The conference which is timely and fits into our ministry’s strategic objectives of ensuring the alignment of all stakeholders towards a common vision for the repositioning of our mining sector.
He said the federal government had identified the mining sector as a viable source of developing Nigeria’s economy in the face of the dwindling earnings of the oil and gas sector.
“This is the focus of Mr. President in diversifying the economy. In this regard and in a determined bid to give expression to the President’s economic policy direction, IMICON, has structured an international conference on mining.”
Also speaking, Chairman of the IMICON Conference Organising Committee, Amb. Dr. B. N. Olorunfemi, noted that: “I believe we have to think outside the box to make things happen in this industry.”
“Until Nigeria puts the right structures in place, as developed minerals economies have done, not much progress can be achieved in this sector in our country.”
Further explaining the rationale for the conference, he described it as an investment round-table, to stimulate deliberate international collaboration to develop Nigeria’s mining industry and open it to the global market.
“This is one of the reasons why the IMICON Conference Organising Committee is made up of proven international experts who are bringing on board their years of robust experience in the industry.”
Specifically charging the private sector to rise up to the responsibility of driving the economy, through the solid minerals sector, he urged them, to key into the government’s diversification agenda for the mining sector.
Some of the topics to be addressed at the conference include: Finance and Insurance, mining sector international finance and the critical role of the insurance sector, international compliance and regulatory stability, the critical role of a stable regulatory regime and attainment of international compliance requirements for attracting external funding for the mining sector.
Others are opportunities for mining sector service industries, factors leading to capital flight and underdevelopment of Nigeria’s mining industry, dearth of mining sector-specific test laboratories of acceptable international standard, and the reasons for stagnated growth of the sector and revenue generating opportunities of the mining sector for states and the federal government.