Nigeria-China Business Council (NCBC) has said that Nigeria ’s bilateral trade with the Peoples’ Republic of China has risen to about $23.5 billion from a mere $3.4 billion that it was back in 2009.
Chairman of NCBC, Chief Jacob Wood said that the council would continue to work with Nigeria and the new government of President Muhammadu Buhari to help upgrade Nigeria’s infrastructure and socio-economic fortunes.
The National Coordinator of NCBC, Chief Matthew Uwaekwe also added that “Before we set up in 2009, trade volumes between Nigerian and China was about $2.7 billion in favour China and $700 million in favour of Nigeria but we looked at it and decided to address this imbalance in trade relations between both countries.
“Today, we are talking about trade volumes between both countries growing to $13 billion for China and $10.5 billion for Nigeria. These trades on the part of Nigeria has seen us export to China such products like cocoa and cotton wool.
“You will agree with me that in terms of the level of in-country employment this has generated, we have about 6000 Nigerians working in various Chinese companies in the country.
“We are now talking to partners to bring home their expertise and manufacture for us made-in-Nigeria products, fit for global consumption and also for our environment.
“With such efforts, we want to see them investing to in manufacturing of goods that fit our environment, services that of global standard and not what we see today.
Uwaekwe also highlighted the manufacture of electric meters in the country, he said “The NERC gave us the assurance that they can only give people license to import if what they are importing cannot be found in Nigeria and that is another way of saying, we are not going to give you license to import if we have given license to people to manufacture this product in Nigeria.
If NERC will maintain this, it will encourage people to go into manufacturing of meter in-country, instead of importing just like Skyrun does at the Calabar Free Trade Zone.”