India’s trade with Nigeria, others hit $62bn

The High Commissioner of India to Nigeria, B.N Reddy has disclosed that the volume of bilateral trade between his country, Nigeria and other countries in Africa in the last financial year currently stands at $62 billion.

The envoy stated this on Thursday in Abuja during a High Level Panel Discussion on India-Nigeria @60 and the Ten Guiding Principles of India’s Engagement with Africa.

Speaking on the Nigeria-India 60-year diplomatic engagement, Ambassador Reddy said relations between both countries had flourished in many diverse areas.

He noted that India is the fifth largest investor in Africa with investments of over US$54 billion, adding that India offers Nigeria 500 training programme annually for capacity building under Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) and third India-Africa Forum Summit programmes.

“Also India has offered Nigeria about US$175 million of concessional loans during the last two years,” he said.

“Nigeria is India’s largest trading partner in Africa while India is its largest trading partner globally with the bilateral trade last year (2017-18) touching US$12 billion.

“For India, Nigeria is the fourth largest supplier of crude oil and the second largest supplier of Natural Gas,” he said, pointing out that the bilateral trade is heavily in favour of Nigeria

Also speaking at the event, the Burundian Ambassador to Nigeria, Emmanuel Mpfayokurera said African countries have not experienced desired growth because they had, over the years, remained raw material export-based economies.

He charged African countries to deepen their engagement with India and other Asia countries, and shift from the European powers who, he said, did not want the continent to develop.

“African countries export raw materials and import finished products at a higher price. We need to tap from the technical expertise of emerging economies for capacity building and technology development to industrialise our economy,” he said.

The former permanent secretary, Head of Service of the Federation, Chief Ndubuisi Osuji, urged the High Commission to sensitise Indian business owners in Nigeria on working relations with their employees.

“Indian companies employ huge number of Nigerian youths but there are concerns about how they are being maltreated by their employers. This needs to be corrected,” he said.