China has expressed interest in importing more crude oil from Nigeria, according to a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) report
The report credited the Chinese interest to their embassy’s local economic and commercial counsellor Zao LingXiang who is said to have made this declaration.
In 2015, the total amount of crude oil export to China was about one million barrels which was 1.3 per cent of Nigerian annual export. LinXiang mentioned that trade volume between Nigeria and China was US$14.94bn in 2014, making Nigeria the third largest trade partner of China in Africa.
“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. Right now, the Nigerian government is trying to diversify its economy which is fully in line with the 10 China-Africa cooperation plans." He added, “There is great potential for cooperation between China and Nigeria in the fields of industrialisation, agricultural modernisation, infrastructure construction, financial services, trade and investment facilitation, among others.”
The counsellor explained that the total investment volume between China and Africa exceeded US$100bn in 2015 in spite of the decline in imports from Africa.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari plans to visit China in April which is also being anticipated as a welcome development in the matter. LinXiang added that his visit would facilitate the implementation of agreements reached at the 2015 China-African summit which took place in South Africa.
