Nigeria/China trade nets $13.3 billion

The business transactions betweenNigeria and China have grown to $13.3billion.Making this disclosure at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Ikeja, Lagos, on Wednesday, the Chief Executive of the Nigeria-China Business Council, Chief Matthew Uwaekwe, said out of the $13.3 billion, over $9 billion was in favour of China while about $4 billion was in favour of Nigeria.Uwaekwe, who said the statistics was from February 2010 to February 2011, explained that the trade imbalance was in favour of China because it exports more products than what it imports unlike Nigeria, which relies more on importation of goods than exportation.Speaking on the importation of sub-standard goods to Nigeria from China, he revealed that the council was working with the Chinese government to ensure that inferior goods were not allowed to enter Nigeria from China adding that any private investors found to be engaged in the importation of substandard goods would be sanctioned.Uwaekwe further said that, in a bid to reduce such inferior products, the council was wooing Chinese investors to invest in the country, stressing that once that was done, the era of sub-standard goods from China would be a thing of the past.He said: 'We are at present making moves to make sure that Chinese investors come to Nigeria to produce here in the country and produce to the specification of the Federal Government and anchored by the Standard Organisation of Nigeria.'We are all blaming the Chinese for importing sub-standard products into Nigeria, but have we asked why this is so' The fact is that in China, they have three categories of products: superior, medium and low, but our businessmen go to them and request for low products to be imported into the country.'Today, in the United States of America, 65 to 70 per cent of their consumed products are imported from China and they are all standard products, but why do we keep having sub-standard products in Nigeria' Our major problem is the Nigerian businessmen; we need to educate our people on the need to go for standard products not just from China but from wherever they are doing business.
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