Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff Visits Nigeria, Targets Ties, Trade and Investments

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was in Nigeria over the weekend. She came by after the Africa-South America Summit, held in Guinea last week. She met with the President, high level bureaucrats and business leaders, to improve trade ties and corporation between Nigeria and Brazil. She signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with President Jonathan, for cooperation between both countries and a target, worth 2.8 trillion naira, was made, for trade volume between both countries by 2015. President Jonathan said of the agreement, ” The main thing that will interest you is that we signed an MoU that will lead to setting up of a Bi-national Commission; that is a body that will be meeting from time to time to see in which areas the countries will be interacting. The Vice Presidents of both countries will sit on the commission, which will be coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” President Rousseff submitted the willingness of Brazil to collaborate with Nigeria in several sectors and to also invest. At a separate meeting between the Nigerian Minister for Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga and the Brazilian Minister of State, Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Mr. Fernando Damata Pimenta, they discussed trade the trade target and Nigerian investment climate. Aganga said, “The trade volume between both countries has increased significantly over the years. Brazil is our number three trading partner in terms of crude oil exports after the United States of America and India. In terms of imports from Brazil, most of our rice, sugar and automobiles come from Brazil. “So, Nigeria has had a good trading relationship with Brazil for a very long time now. The Brazilian Minister of State, Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade and I will work together to double the trade volume between Nigeria and Brazil by 2015.” He continued, “During our meeting, we discussed our economic relationship and how we could strengthen and deepen this relationship, especially in strategic areas where we want to develop and where Brazilian companies could invest and help to develop the economy of our country. We also discussed about our Industrial Revolution Plan, through which we want to move away from a country that exports raw materials to a country that will export finished goods by developing our value chain, particularly in the sectors where we have competitive and comparative advantage.” “We also looked at how Brazil could take advantage of the huge opportunities that are yet to be fully tapped as contained  in our new Sugar Master Plan.  We have agreed on the next step which involves trade and investment missions from Brazil to Nigeria. Also, we are looking at setting up the Brazil Nigeria Trade and Investment Council to be able to drive trade and investment inflows into both countries.” Pimenta said that, “Nigeria and Brazil have many things in common. Nigeria is part of our history and common future of our growth, development, peace and fraternity. Nigeria is a great nation and I feel very excited being here to discuss issues of mutual economic, trade and investment between Brazil and Nigeria.” “The FSDH Research in its economic forecast for Nigeria, which was released last week, said that with the ongoing reforms in the power sector and the impressive growth in the non-oil potential of the country’s economy, Nigeria’s trade volume “is expected to jump to N35.05 trillion by the end of 2013.”