The Nigerian Construction Sector is principally involvedin the development and maintenance of civil engineering works and infrastructural provision comprising roads, bridges, railways, etc., as well as residential and commercial real estate.
Opportunities for investment and expansion abound in the Industry for infrastructural and real estate development activities if the right policy, regulations and framework are adopted and instituted.
With respect to housing development, back in 2006, the United Nations agency for Human Settlement, UN-HABITAT, estimated the country’s housing deficit at seventeen (17,000,000) million units. That was fourteen (14) years ago, meaning that the deficit could be more. The market value of this deficit has been estimated at $363 billion.
Infrastructure is a backbone of social-economic development of any country and its institutions. A nation cannot be self -reliant unless it evolves a large-scale infrastructure network. The construction industry is very important for country's economic growth, infrastructural development and employment generation.
The construction industry is responsible for about sixteen (16%) of the gross domestic product (GDP) and employs approximately twenty-five percent (25%) of Nigeria’s workforce on projects.
There are mainly three (3) segments in the construction industry like real estate construction which includes residential and commercial construction; infrastructure building which includes roads, railways, power etc; and industrial construction that consists of oil and gas refineries, pipelines, textiles etc.Building material is any material which is used for a construction purpose.
Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, sand, wood and rocks, even twigs and leaves have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man-made products are in use.
The ever-increasing deficit in housing supply in Nigeria which is estimated at over seventeen million (17,000,000) units and the need for the construction of other important infrastructure if the country is to meet up with the vision 20:2020 project of becoming amongst the top twenty (20) economies in the world by 2020 continues to drive the need for building materials and construction equipment.
It is on record that over sixty percent (60%) of the entire population of the country lives on rented accommodation. This indicates another latent market in the real estate industry in Nigeria.
The increasing need to build new residential houses, factories and offices to accommodate Nigeria’s large population has made cement block molding a very lucrative business in the country.
