The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has said the Federal Government is in talks with the Republic of China in order for the country to be “importing some of its own items from Nigeria.”
The CBN Governor said the move will help reduce the gulf in trading between the two countries, adding that part of the deal Nigeria signed with China was that Nigeria would become the Asian Country’s trading hub in West Africa.
Mr. Godwin Emefiele disclosed this while speaking at a press conference at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington DC, on the last day of the 2016 World Bank/IMF spring meeting.
He said that: “China has appointed South Africa as its trading hub for Remnibi transactions in the Southern African region, has appointed Kenya as its trading hub for East and Central Africa and Nigeria, the mandate that we signed is for us to be appointed as the trading hub in the West African sub region. In all, we expect that it is going to be mutually beneficial.
He continued that: “We are talking to China so that it would also be importing some of its own items from Nigeria, so that the trading balance can be sort of reduced.
“Will Nigeria benefit from this? I want to say categorically that Nigeria will from this. It’s less pressure on the dollar and consequently on our reserves,” he added.
According to news agency, The Cable, the CBN Governor added that the CBN could not continued to further devaluation the naira without putting in place necessary structural reforms.
“For the first time, we are taking structural reforms seriously in the country. We’ve always talked about, oh, when you do an adjustment, follow it up with structural reforms.
“But we are saying this time, we’ve done an adjustment and we are following it up with structural reform, to diversify the economy from depending on oil.
“I’ve said it that we have seen people who are coming in to invest. During the china trip, we saw people who said they can now come in instead of exporting those items into Nigeria, they can now bring those plants into Nigeria and begin to produce those things in Nigeria because our climate is good.
He added: “I repeat, what is the raw material for fertilizer? It is gas. We have it in large quantity; when you bring in the plant, you don’t need to import any raw material again. We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel; we just want people to show understanding,”