Investment-driven industrial localisation in Calabar, free trade zone and environs, south-eastern/southsouth, Nigeria: Evidence on recent sub-national regional economic diversification

Abstract

The type of foreign direct investment (FDI) mostly received by Nigeria in the past decades has formed one of the central points of the discussion of the nature of investment in development in this country acknowledged as Africa’s second largest economy. The way FDI receipt varies by size and type by sub-national regions (especially the 36 states, Federal Capital Territory in Abuja and the 774 Local Government Areas) forming Nigeria’s federation has so been poorly addressed. However, scholars recently reported on the receipt of FDI in Cross River State following the state government’s policy that is being praised by Nigeria’s federal government agencies and international governmental organizations -including United Nations Systems in Nigeria, among others. The praises recognize Cross River State Government’s practice of good governance and cost-effective resource management as it confronts challenges including declining funds hitherto allocated from the pooled federation account. The objective of this article is to is to contribute towards understanding recent foreign direct investment in Cross River State. This article follows on theoretical perspectives and background recently reported by presenting findings of an empirical case study of recent and ongoing increasing investments in the Calabar Free Trade Zone (CFTZ) city of Cross River State (Nigeria). We apply methods of descriptive case study to inform on the increasing commitment of foreign investments towards manufacturing engagement in Calabar urban region/environs. We present Calabar region’s previous/recent development challenges and provide some details of the recent increasing foreign investments in the Calabar FTZ city, before analyzing and synthesizing the recent increasing foreign investments in the Calabar FTZ city. It is demonstrated that the recent economic dynamics would engender a set of socio-economic, spatial and ecological/environmental responses and explain their implications to Calabar’s overall and manifold governance dimensions and status. We recommend that further study could focus on showing how foreign investment in manufacturing and recent dynamics in the global economy (e.g. financial-economic crises) and sub-national investment promotion have combined to make possible the recent increases in investment manufacturing in the Calabar region.

Keywords

• Foreign investments
• manufacturing
• Calabar FTZ (city)
• Cross River State
• Nigeria
• employment
• low per capita income