Nigeria will consider all financing options, including a Eurobond, to raise money to cover high infrastructure costs, Finance Minister, Shamsudeen Usman, said on Friday."We are looking at various alternative sources of funding for the huge infrastructure investment that is necessary for Nigeria to achieve the high rates of growth that have the capacity to transform the economy," Usman said in an interview with Reuters.

Usman said that while there were no immediate plans to issue a Eurobond, in terms of funding: "Everything is on the cards, we haven’t excluded anything."
Nigerian officials talked last year about issuing a Eurobond as part of debt restructuring, but these plans were dropped.

International investors are increasingly interested in buying African assets as a way of picking up yield, due to tightening debt spreads in traditional emerging markets.
Nigeria is rated BB- by Fitch and Standard & Poor’s. The country will have its rating reviewed in November, and Usman said he was hoping for an improvement in the rating.

"There has been a lot of more positive developments since the last rating."
Investment bank, Goldman Sachs, had said it expected credit rating agencies to upgrade Nigeria’s sovereign rating in the near term, as the country starts to shake off political uncertainty surrounding general elections in April.

Goldman includes Nigeria in the Next-11, its list of 11 emerging markets to watch.
Nigeria is the world’s eight-largest oil exporter and the government makes about $40 billion a year from crude exports at current prices.Ghana, rated below Nigeria at B+, saw huge demand for its debut Eurobond last month, a $750 million deal with maturity of 10 years.

source: The Nation