Buhari now to visit China in April

Buhari now to visit China in April

Sunday, March 13, 2016 4:49 pm


President with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Africa last December

President with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Africa last December

President Muhammadu Buhari will no longer visit China this month.

The Economic and  Commercial Counsellor  of the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria said President Buhari is now expected in April.

Mr Zao LingXiang said that the  visit  would facilitate the implementation of agreements reached at the 2015 China-African summit in Johannesburg.

The economic counsellor further added that the president’s visit would also deepen cooperation between both countries.

The  current trade volume between both countries stood at 14.94 billion U.S. dollars in 2014 making Nigeria third largest trade partner of China in Africa.

The economic counsellor added that Nigeria’s trade figure was 8.3 per cent of China’s total trade volume with Africa and 42 per cent of the total trade volume between China and Africa.

Meanwhile China has said it seeks more crude oil exports from Nigeria in spite of the recent changes in oil prices.

“But the total amount of export to China was only about one million barrels in 2015 that was just 1.3 per cent of Nigerian annual oil export.

“In my opinion, it really doesn’t matter whether Iran comes back or not; Chinese companies want to import more crude oil from Nigeria,” he said.

 

He said that China also sought to explore other areas of cooperation with Nigeria which he noted would be of benefit to both parties.

“China is the largest developing country in the world and Nigeria is the largest developing country in Africa and both countries have complementary advantages in natural and human resources, funds and markets.

 


Join The Conversation

What do you think?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.