Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama has said that Nigeria will strengthen bilateral ties with Brazil to boost its economy through increased trade relations, agricultural initiatives, multilateralism, and tackle insecurity.
Onyeama made this known on Tuesday in Abuja when he received Mr. Ernesto Aranjo, Brazilian External Relations Minister of Brazil who is on a working visit to Nigeria.
Onyeama who said that both countries had a lot in common, added that Nigeria would leverage the expertise of Brazil to grow the economies of both countries.
He said that the Federal Government would embark on a lot of initiatives to improve the ease of doing business in Nigeria to make the country more attractive to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
The minister said that Nigeria had a lot to offer in terms of return on investment.
“There are numbers of important initiatives that we are pursuing such as the Green Initiative, a very promising initiative that will be a game-changer in the agricultural sector.
“We look forward to cooperating with you in implementing this very ambitious agricultural project which is based on the success and experience of Brazil in Agriculture.
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“We also look to have closer and deeper ties, security-wise. We face some security challenges, terrorist challenges for several years now.
“And Brazil is one country we also look to explore areas of cooperation in the military field and we hope that this could be something that we can achieve.
“Brazil is one of the largest economies in the world and one of the largest country population-wise and Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa and the most populous country so we have a lot of similarities.
“For much too large economies, we feel that we should do a lot in trade between our two countries and the level can be increased much more.
“We have relations in the oil and gas sector and agriculture, but we can do a lot more and we are delighted that there is a business group that has come with you from Brazil to explore possibilities,” Onyeama said.
Onyeama also told his Brazilian counterpart that there is a lot of advantage for Brazil for coming to Nigeria and there is a lot of economic advantage that the ECOWAS can offer and now.
He told the Brazilain envoy that with the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA), Africa could be one of the largest global integrated common market which should majorly interest Brazil.
Onyeama said that Nigeria would, in close collaboration with Brazil, strengthen multilateralism at the level of the United Nations.
He said that the High-Level Strategic Dialogue meeting holding in March 2020 between both countries Vice Presidents would be an opportunity to look into the issues of pending Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs).
Also speaking, Aranjo said that Brazil seeks to have strong and new engagements with Nigeria basically on three pillars; Economic, trade, and investment, in the area of Defense and security and on human connection and values.
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