The People’s Republic of China has indicated its willingness to purchase more crude oil from Nigeria, not minding the changes in world oil price.
Economic and Commercial Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria, Zao LingXiang, gave this indication in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
According to Xiang, only about one million barrels of crude oil was exported from Nigeria to China in 2015, 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.
“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 announced at the summit on China-Africa trade in Johannesburg in 2015.
“There are 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 amount in import from Africa to China declined but did not decline remarkably.
“Moreover, the economic and trade cooperation between China and Africa is not only about trade but technical cooperation as well.
“China’s total investment volume in Africa last year increased by 100 times more in a short span of 10 years, which shows that cooperation between both parties is moving to a new level,” he said.
Xiang is hopeful that the visit of President Buhari to China in April would facilitate the implementation of agreements reached at the 2015 China-African summit in Johannesburg.
NAN
