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President Goodluck Jonathan was on a state visit at the weekend to Kenya, where he met with his Kenyan counterpart President Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenyan businesses leaders, and the Nigerian community there. There were several bilateral and trade agreements signed, and Kenya has offered oil wells and visas covering between five to ten years to genuine businessmen from Nigeria. The documents signed included Memorandum of Understanding on trade and investment; oil and gas; tourism; visa exemption for diplomatic passport holders; conclusion of agreements on double taxation; agriculture, livestock and fisheries; and twinning of cities. “We look forward to strengthening intra-Africa trade which currently stands at below 12 per cent,” Uhuru said. President Uhuru said he has ordered Kenya’s immigration department to conclude the Draft Agreement.  Kenya presented a five-year visa to Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote. Kenya also offered 46 oil blocs to Nigerian investors, according to Nigeria’s Minister for Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke. She said the arrangement was made during the Nigeria-Kenya Investment Forum. According to reports, Kenya’s oil reserves stands at 368 million barrels. Alison-Madueke said that “It is well known now that Kenya had recently discovered hydrocarbon reserves and they are very keen to move quite aggressively in terms of exploration activities. They felt that as a sister African country, Nigeria having many years of oil exploration and production, that it only makes sense, that we exchange agreement in cooperation to hand over knowledge, capabilities and experience learnt. “They seek various templates that we have formulated, including policies, processes and a sort of template that form Petroleum Industry Bill among others. We also looked at areas surrounding Nigeria’s investments possibilities where we think that Nigeria business men and women could come into the oil and gas sector in Kenya.” “They are very keen that Nigerians operators in the upstream, midstream and downstream service sectors of the oil and gas industry look to Kenya as a bourgeois frontier for investments in the oil and gas sector. They are also very keen that we robustly support them in setting up the right framework, policies and processes and technology to help them drive the exploration activities,” she said.

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This article was first published on 9th September 2013 and updated on September 19th, 2013 at 10:22 am

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