Nigeria-Pakistan Joint Commission has been constituted to further strengthen bilateral trade and investment relations and an agreement is to be signed soon, frequent exchange of trade delegations and trade fairs will be organised, this stated by High Commissioner of Nigeria to Pakistan Ambassador Dauda Donaldi on Tuesday.
Addressing to the members of Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry, he said that with this arrangement, bilateral trade between both the brotherly Islamic countries would improve rapidly. He said that Nigeria possesses greater trade and investment potential in the areas of oil and gas, minerals and mining, agriculture and livestock, poultry and fisheries.
He said that the investments made in Nigeria are fully guaranteed by the government in addition to 100 percent repatriation of capital and profits, 75 per cent import duty rebate with no withholding taxes. To provide security to life and investment is the full responsibility of Nigerian government for foreign investors, he added. The HC continued that Nigeria offers attractive investment opportunities in the field of agriculture, livestock, commercial farming, storage, processing, marketing there to, textile sector, fertiliser manufacturing, Biofuel - Cassava and Jatropha (feedstock for growing international bio-fuel market), pharmaceuticals and offered the industrialists and entrepreneurs for investing there to reap the unmatchable avenues of profitability that exist in Nigeria.
He said over 80 per cent of Nigeria's non-oil exports comes from raw and semi-processed agricultural products having greater investment opportunities in upstream and downstream industries. Earlier, in his welcome address to the Nigerian High Commissioner, the President FCCI Mian Zahid Aslam said that Pakistan and Nigeria enjoys extremely cordial economic and political relations as brotherly Islamic countries at all international forums including members of D-8 forum and Organisation of Islamic countries (OIC) in addition to having strong friendly and diplomatic relations. Both the countries share many similarities as to economy size, population and colonial history.
He continued that with a population of 170 million, Nigeria is an important country for Pakistan having annual GDP growth of 6.9 per cent emerging an economic power in the African Continent. Pakistan and Nigeria have bigger size of economies but trade volume between both the countries was limited only to $39.89 million in 2011, he added. Other than maintaining steady trade relations, Pakistan has been greatly contributing in fulfilling the defence requirements of Nigeria, he mentioned.
He emphasised on the frequent exchange of trade delegations, increased liaison and trade information of potential buyers of Pakistani products in Nigeria, identify more and more tradable products with priority be given to each others' products, sector-specific delegation to Nigeria, single country exhibition at important cities in Nigeria and participation in trade exhibition in both the countries. Head of Nigerian Mission G.M Germa, former president Muzammal Sultan and former vice president Rehan Nasim Bhrara, Chaudhry Muhammad Asghar and others shared their views on the occasion.
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