‘Foreign investors should prioritise Nigeria’
Chairman of House of Representatives Committee on China-Nigeria Parliamentary Friendship Relationship, Jafaaru Yakubu, has said international investors should prioritise Nigeria.
He spoke when Chairman of GAC Motors Nigeria, Chief Diana Chen, Vice Chair of Hunan Provincial Political Consultative Conference, Lai Mingyong, and a delegation from Huaihua Hunan Province visited him in Abuja.
The lawmaker said Nigeria takes its relationship with China serious, noting this has been escalated to a parliamentary commitment, with a committee to give it a legislative backing.
“We have engaged a consultant, Merited Negotiating Consulting, to organise a summit in Nigeria and China on sustainable trade and investment relations. The aim is to fashion a Legislative Agenda for a sustainable pathway for ease of doing business between Nigeria and China. I invite you to partner with us,” he said.
He said “China is the manufacturing and trading hub of the world dominating trade relations with eight of 10 most developed countries, and, in the process, becoming the determinant of global pricing template and reducing inflationary pressures. Internally, it is probably the most successful jurisdiction when it comes to poverty alleviation having reduced absolute poverty to less than five per cent of the population and on a trajectory of total elimination by 2035.
“China has become a major global role player in development through major interventions in humanitarian and infrastructure development. On the other hand, Africa is the last frontier for humanity in terms of development and the starting point of conversation on African development is Nigeria. Nigeria’s population constitutes 20 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa, making it the single largest market in Africa. Furthermore, its strategic location almost at the gateway into the west coast makes it strategic to regional commerce with access into the central African markets, Congo basin and even great lakes countries. The new protocol on African trade, Africa Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) highly accepted by all, has expanded the scope of market access into Africa from Nigeria.
“In welcoming this delegation, I must say I have always been fascinated by Hunan being essentially the birth place of modern China where the great Mao was born. This historic significance makes Hunan a top line province to look at when doing business in China. The mining sector in nonferrous minerals is robust and in all, these are viable areas of collaboration that cannot be ignored.”
