Business transactions between Nigeria and China has reached over $13.3bn in the last one year just as efforts are being made by the Government to reduce the influx of sub-standard products emanating from China into Nigeria.This was revealed on Wednesday in Lagos by the Chief Executive of the Nigeria-China Business Council, Chief Matthew Uwaekwe during a briefing with journalists.Uwaekwe however pointed out that out of the sum, over $9bn was in favour of China while about $4bn was in favoured of the country. Uwaekwe further explained that the statistics was from February 2010 to February 2011.He explained that the trade imbalance was in favour of China because the Asian country exports more products than what it imports unlike Nigeria, which relies more on importation of goods than exportation.Speaking on why importation of sub-standard goods to Nigeria continues to enjoy boost from China, Uwaekwe emphasised that the council was working with the Chinese Government to ensure that inferior goods are prevented from entering Nigeria from China, adding that any private investors found in the act would be subsequently dealt with according to the law of the land.He 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 into 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 standards, but why do we keep on having sub-standard products in Nigeria' The major problem we have 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.'He said that for Nigeria to be among the 20 top economies in the world by 2020, effort must be geared towards improving the Small Medium Enterprises, stressing that no country grows without the SME.He challenged the Federal Government to create enabling environments to private investors in the country so that they could contribute in significant ways to the Gross Domestic Products of the country.He attributed inconsistency in the Government policies to the challenges facing the country's business environment, maintaining that once this could be challenged, Nigeria would grow.'It is unfortunate that we don't have continuity in the Government policies and this is driving away real investors from Nigeria to other foreign countries. Once a Government goes, the new Government does not follow the policies of his predecessor and this is not good for our business environment. I hope we can work on this and move on from there.
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