WINDHOEK, 26 NOV (NAMPA) – Minister of Industrialisation and Trade, Lucia Iipumbu, on Thursday tabled the Namibia Investment Promotion and Facilitation Act (NIPA), to create a conducive environment that can attract, retain and facilitate both domestic and foreign sustainable investments.
Iipumbu tabled the Act in the National Assembly during the Parliament session, saying the Act will not only cover and define its objects, but will also give the minister the power to execute his or her duties and functions of key institutional poles within the NIPA framework.
She said there is a critical need to ensure that Namibia embraces and adopts its revamped and revived investment legislation due to several pressing reasons, and to ensure that the country is not left with a policy gap when it comes to the investment environment, after the previous act was withdrawn in 2016.
“This has led to increasing investor uncertainty, a situation that Namibia can ill-afford any further. The investor uncertainty is felt in the very low investment the country secured over the last three years. Although global investment levels have also experienced a downturn exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Namibia is one of the economies that has been severely affected, with investor uncertainty a key determinant thereof,” said Iipumbu.
She added that the absent investment policy regime enables an impaired environment, where the ministry is not able to leverage on newer investment strategies pertaining to renewable energies and resuscitating a post-COVID-19 economy within an updated investment legislative and policy framework that can protect local enterprises comprehensively.
“Our country’s premier publication to front-load key governmental initiatives, the Harambee Prosperity Plan II of 2021-2025, posits several key investment initiatives around green hydrogen and ammonia, designing competitive investment incentives and an investment plan for a green and blue economy. All these will hinge largely on an enabling investment policy and legislative environment, for which NIPA is therefore detailed as a specific action to be completed during this financial year,” stated Iipumbu.
She added that in pursuance of the attainment of Vision 2030 and the drive to industrialise the country, the ministry therefore re-posits the introduction of new investment legislation, which is more responsive and overarching, embodying many benefits for investors.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
