LAGOS CITY, Nigeria -- We are grateful to God our strength in ages past. My sincere gratitude extends to the UNITE Advisory Board, our sponsors Diamond Bank PLC and other proposed sponsors and partners especially Classic FM 97.3 the flagship station of our Real Estate ON AIR radio program. We appreciate that you have abiding faith in 3INVEST vision and share our passion to reposition the Nigeria real estate sector. Further, I am indebted to my team on whose resilience this dream is being nurtured to fruition.
I am most delighted that today we are sitted again to announce plans for the second edition of what will become Africa's largest congregation of Real Estate Professionals: Real Estate Unite Conference, Exhibition and Awards. My delight goes beyond the mere thoughts of putting an event together, but that 3Invest are counted at this moment when it matters most in the history of Real Estate in Nigeria and indeed Africa.
On 17th and 18th October 2013 at the Civic Centre, Lagos, Real Estate Unite, an International Business-to-Business event that seeks to unite all aspects of Nigeria’s real estate industry will again gather all stakeholders under one platform. This event, through its 3-tiered summit is designed to expose the prospects of Nigeria’s Real Estate sector. The Awards segment is conceived to elevate standards; the Conference offers practical solutions through the experience and expertise of careful profiled speakers within and outside the shores of Africa; while the international perspective will be projected through the exhibition as we have noticed increased activities from international exhibitors. This summit has been designed to give the industry a great leap and we welcome the general public to be part of it.
The mission of this event still resonates from its maiden edition, to help unlock Nigeria’s real estate potentials for economic prosperity. This singular vision explains the theme of this second edition: Advancing Nigeria's Real Estate for Economic Growth". Therefore, beyond the global perspective of last year's event, we have zoomed in and decided to view our industry from a domestic point of view.
Last year, we highlighted some major issues at our conference and our research shows increased activities in the real estate industry since the inception of Real Estate Unite in 2012. It may sound coincidental but the government are recognising and putting real estate at the forefront of the nations activities and recognising that unlocking the potentials in the real estate industry is integral to economic development of the country. Especially the Mortgage Refinance Company movement been driven by the Minister of Finance Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala.
At this year’s edition we seek to answer the following questions, how do we advance our real estate for economic growth? Does our land use allow this growth? Would increased tourism and hospitality do the trick? What is the state of our airports as the first sight of an investor or visitor? What happened to our railways? What is the cost of maintenance?
Having highlighted these major issues barring our nations real estate from reaching its economic potentials, we realised that Infrastructure and urbanisation is a major driver of emerging markets, reformation of our laws is the key to unlocking our housing finance sector and lack of skill set training is the answer to the dilapidated state of our built sector.
In order to develop strategies to tackles these issues, we have lined up speakers from key sectors who are key decision makers, policy makers and leading opinion shapers. We are partnering with international real estate institutions and we will develop case studies from precedented achievements of the panellists and work out practical solutions in solving these challenges.
This year's edition shall focus more on infrastructure, sustainability and the economic possibilities of a thriving infrastructure market in terms of employment, crime reduction and economic development. We have chosen infrastructure because the potentials of Real Estate, especially commercial, hospitality and residential cannot be harness without it.
We appreciate all our colleagues and are delighted as stakeholders who have passionately committed resources to advocate for the real estate industry. We however acknowledge efforts from other stakeholders and their desire for a prosperous industry gives us the motivation to brace up whilst strategically positioning ourselves for a more robust and sustainable industry.
On this note ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for taking out time to be part of history in Nigeria’s Real Estate. 3Invest is not hosting this event for the prestige it brings but the success of the event will be measured by how impactful it is and what changes the event will be able to bring to the sector as a whole. We implore you share our dream. We enjoin you to key into our vision: We invite you to UNITE with us as we redefine Business, Investment and Real Estate in Nigeria.
Thank you.
RUTH OBIH | 3INVEST LIMITED
