‘Bilateral trade between Nigeria/Britain to exceed £8bn target this year’

The Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) says it expects bilateral trade between both nations to exceed its targets this year.

Prime Minister David Cameron and President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010 had resolved to double trade between the two countries from £4 billion to £8 billion by 2014.

“By the end of 2012, the figure already stood at £7.2 billion and there is no doubt that the target of £8 billion would have been exceeded well before the end of this target year of 2014,” said Adeyemi Adefulu, president, NBCC, recently in the Chamber’s trade mission to Britain.

“It is my considered opinion that with the right policies and incentives, the trade between our two countries could hit £20 billion within the next five years,” he said further.

Nigeria has been attracting investor interest recently as a result of positive indices of growth and demographics.

The Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics recently announced a rebasing of the Nigeria’s GDP figures that put the value for 2013 at $490 billion, as against the World Bank’s GDP figure of $263 billion for Nigeria, and $384 billion for South Africa for the same period.

The rebasing has made the Nigerian economy the largest in Africa and the 26th in the world and more attractive for investors.

Nigeria on May 7 – 9, 2014, also hosted a very successful World Economic Forum for Africa – WEFA – under the theme “Forging Inclusive Growth, Creating Jobs” without incident, despite the menacing terrorist activities of Boko Haram in the North East of the country.

WEFA was attended by a record breaking over 1000 delegates from all over the world.

The meeting achieved important milestones, some of which were – aggregating $68 billion funds for investment in Africa, especially, Nigeria in healthcare, agriculture, energy, infrastructure and education, commendation of the Nigeria’s privatisation of its power sector, unarguably, the largest power privatisation that has been undertaken in the world, and endorsement of the Nigerian economy as the investment destination of choice in Africa.