Head, Economic and Commerce of the Spanish Embassy in Nigeria, Mr. Pablo Segrelles has said that Nigeria exported €6.5bn worth of Crude Oil to Spain in 2014.
Segrelles added that Nigeria exported more to Spain than Spain exported to the country.
Segrelles while speaking at a business luncheon organised by the Nigerian-Spain Association said “There has always been productive relationship business relationship. Spain has always bought Nigerian products, especially oil and gas.
“Ten years ago, we were the second client; now, we are the 11th because of the growth of other emerging countries, and we began to import more after the Libyan crisis.”
“Of course now that oil prices are going down, the value of the imports are expected to be down. However, in 2014, the import of Nigerian products was worth €6,500m; that is a big amount and it is nearly 20 times more than what Spain exports to Nigeria.”
The President, NSA, Chief Olusola Dada also added that now that we are faced with dwindling oil prices, Nigeria would start diversifying her economy.
He said “In terms of the internationalisation of our economy, we are told that Spain has been trying to expose its economy to the international communities and this is what we are trying to do.
“In the past, we were exporting oil and gas products, but from what we have been witnessing in Nigeria, whereby oil revenue is dwindling, no one will teach us to encourage non-oil products. We spend a lot of money externally to import things that are not necessary. We need to domesticate these products.”