03
Oct
The bilateral trade volume between Nigeria and China has hit $11.76 billion in first eight months of this year. This represents a 36 per cent increase on the figure recorded in the corresponding period of last year.
Indeed, official sources hinted of further increase in the trade volume within the next five years when China expects to increase its imports to $10 trillion.
China’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Gu Xiaojie, who made the disclosure in Abuja at a reception Tuesday evening, noted that his country now contributes 30 per cent to world’s economy and also expects to increase its foreign direct investment to $500 billion within the same period.
According to him, this move, which is a result of reforms by his government, is an opportunity for the whole world to get more benefits from China.
He therefore declared Nigeria as China’s strategic partner in Africa with bilateral relations in areas such as telecommunication, infrastructure, trade, energy, agriculture, electric power, aerospace, science and technology, among others.
Beside the fact that both countries are the biggest economies on their respective continents, they share the same date of independence. While Nigeria got its independence on October 1 of 1960, China became independent 11 years earlier on October 1 of 1949.
“As the second largest economy in the world, a lesson which Nigeria may however learn from the Asian tiger is that “China has explored a road of development that suits its own national conditions and with its own characteristics, achieving within decades what the developed world achieved in hundreds of years”, the ambassador said.
According to him, this was made possible by the adoption of its reform and open-up policy 36 years ago. Since then, the Chinese economy has been growing at an average of 9.8 per cent annually.
“The Chinese people have never been so close to the realisation of the Chinese dream, the dream of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”, he said.
He however noted that the nation still has its challenges with about 200 million of its 1.3 billion population living under the poverty line. That is less than 20 per cent of its population.
Source: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/business/181408-nigeria-s-trade-with-china-hits-11-7b