By Linus Aleke, Abuja
Federal Government (FG), has announced plan to to improve its trade relations with Cote D’Ivoire, and other West African neighbors, to expand its trade balance from $2 billion to $7billion.
Director, Economic, Trade and Investment, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bolaji Akinremi, said this in a joint press conference with Abuja Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), and Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME) in Abuja.
Amb. Bolaji said that Federal Government has decided to organize Nigeria – Cote D’Ivoire Business Round Table and Exhibition in collaboration with the private sector, at the sideline of the meeting of ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government to actualize the above projection.
He said, “We need to push the agenda on economic development beyond what it is now. Our trade balance is just about 2 billion dollars and recently it started nosediving. So, the intention is to look at this two giants, one in the Francophone and one in the Anglophone and to bring them together to do something together”.
The meeting, he said, is to assess how the two countries have fared so far in their economic relations, to look at possible area of collaboration and expansion.
“When you look at the two economy, you will discover that Cote D’Ivoire is an agrarian economy, just like Nigeria, but they have excelled in certain produce. In the case of Nigeria, we are leading in fertilizer production in Africa, we are even supplying fertilizer to European countries. I am sure you know that there are big companies in Nigeria that blend fertilizer. We have excelled in that area. So, if we have an agrarian economy like Cote D’Ivoire, why can’t we corporate, so that we can harness something that is within our region and localize it. Look at something like automobile, Nigeria has excelled in that area also. Toady, we have assembling plants in Nigeria. We even manufacture vehicles in Nigeria, one auto company is even manufacturing military vehicles in Nigeria. So, we have that proficiency, we can combine in that area instead of going far away to get that,” he said.
He disclosed that the two economies are looking at areas of collaboration and to they feel that there is need to set examples.
He noted that the best time to explore this is during ECOWAS meeting.
This, he said, is because ECOWAS presented a platform which is often time used as political platform.
“We therefore, have this idea that during every ECOWAS meeting, we would have a business investment forum whereby we can review our existing economic corporation. We can look at means of deepening them, look at the challenges that we have, the areas of collaboration and the prospective products. For instance, Cote D’Ivoire import crude from Nigeria and export back to us some of the petroleum products, that is one area. We also, have technology in that area, so we can exchange note. But much more than that we can look into some agricultural products like cashew or Coco, Cote D’Ivoire is number one today in terms of raw cashew. But we can collaborate in terms of value addition. We only ship this product in raw form to countries like India and Vietnam and they get the best of the deal. The money is actually in the value addition, but if the two giant collaborate with each other, we can do better. Today, Nigeria is the Chair of Cashew Association and our national cashew association is also doing well. When we go into this, we can actually improve production, so, these are the ideas we have,” he concluded.
Director General, Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), Ms. Victoria Akai, said that the ECOWAS meeting will be incomplete without discussions or activities that involves Naira and Kobo.
She said: “The business community is very excited about this initiative. We are looking forward to making this a yearly event through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I think that we are going to have a very good outing and we are optimistic that the outing is going to improve with time”.
The concept note shared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, revealed that business round table and exhibition “is a public private partnership arrangements, even though the government is taking the lead here, all the private sector are strongly behind it. We have had more that five preparatory meetings and in each of them, we had well over 40 MDAs represented”.
The theme of the event is synergy for optimal productivity.
