Nigeria, Vietnam seek improved ties to drive FDI

• Record $433.53m trade volume
The Ambassador of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Pham Anh Tuan, has disclosed that bilateral ties between Vietnam and Nigeria stood at $433.53 million at the end of 2017.

According to him, between 2015 and 2017, trade between the two nations grew at an average yearly rate of 36.49 per cent to hit $433.53 million in 2017 from $233.18 million in 2015.

Speaking at the Nigeria-Vietnam Trade and Investment Promotion Forum, held on Monday, in Lagos, the Vietnam Ambassador noted that a stronger partnership between the two countries would further drive more Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs), as Vietnam is always ready to do business with Nigeria.

He said: “A number of cooperation agreements have been signed to boost socio-economic relations between the governments and entrepreneurs of the two countries, while others are being negotiated.

“It should be mentioned that the Vietnamese trade balance with Nigeria is surplus in favour of Nigeria. However, Nigeria remains the largest market in Africa and therefore has great demand for a lot of commodities sourced indirectly from Vietnam.

“With Nigeria coming out of economic recession, my expectation is that we can do more in the future as I can see the trade and investment statistics now are still beyond the potential facts.”

Speaking further, he noted that the main focus of the trade and investment drive was not only to boost trade promotion, but also to facilitate the delivery of appropriate technology and systems, and ensure access to affordable input and output market linkages.

Tuan maintained that the drive would stimulate private sector investment, and encourage best practice in both development and commerce, and enable the two countries brace up to new developments such as; change in supply, rising labour costs and protection of trade and international investment, for national interest.

In his remarks, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, represented by the Deputy Director, Trade, Aliyu Abubakar, said the collaboration between the two countries is a step in the right direction.

He maintained that improved collaboration between the two countries would be a win-win situation for Nigeria, as it has the ability to boost partnership in agriculture in line with the diversification agenda of the government to promote the non-oil sector.