People’s Republic of China has pledged to partner with the relevant authorities in revamping agriculture and industry sectors and prioritise areas of investments in Nigeria.
Mr Cui Jiachun, Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, said this in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, as his country signed a letter of intent with Nigeria.
Cui was speaking shortly after the China-Nigeria Business Dialogue with Ministerial-level Officials, and representatives of political parties’ form Nigeria and China.
The high-level meeting which held in Abuja was with the theme, “Seeking Common Cooperation and Development Through Inter-party Exchanges”.
Cui said that the partnership was starting with the Kano State Government seeking to prioritise areas of trade and investment and to strengthen the ties with Nigeria at all levels of government.
“I think we can prioritise areas, for example the Fujian province and Kano State, they can work together from the state level to other levels. I think this is a very innovative way to expedite and accelerate development.
”China will replicate the programme in all other states of the Nigeria,” he said.
Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano also said that the idea behind the partnership between political parties was to ensure entrepreneurship in government.
“Political party is the platform for recruiting government officials in elective and appointive positions to provide assistance to the people who voted for the politicians.
“So, Kano State is in good relationship with the Fujian province in China. Kano is the commercial nerve centre of northern Nigeria and also a commercial nerve centre of some West African countries and Fujian is a commercial province in China.
“So, the agreement that we have signed will see us through different areas.
“Kano is an agricultural state in Nigeria, we produce a lot of grains. Kano has the largest grain market in West Africa and you find a lot of Chinese in the commercial activities in that market.
“So, you can see that we need a lot of processing in order to convert those grains into finished products. We require collaboration in terms of machinery and in terms of personnel manpower for production.
“Another area is that of hides and skin. Kano has the highest number of finished products for hides and skin because we get a lot from Niger and Chad therefore we have a number of tanneries. But we export the hides and skin instead of converting it to finished products.
“So, we need collaboration with Fujian Province whereby the hides and skin can be converted into finished products for exports and for consumption,” Ganduje said.
Ganduje also noted that another important area of collaboration was ranching, especially in producing grass for cattle, which he said will reduce the migration of herdsmen from one state to another and reduce the conflict between herdsmen and farmers.
“We are discussing with them on how to produce grasses that are good for cattle so that we can domesticate our herdsmen and put them in one place to reduce the moving from one place to another,” he added said.
The governor also disclosed that part of the agreement was to revamp the textile industry in Kano and the Chinese could help in providing the needed investment in that sector.
Speaking, Sen. Iyiola Omisore, the APC National Secretary, also hinted that the CPC of China and the Nigerian ruling party were working on party engagement to improve relations on politics, business and governance.
Omisore said that Nigeria was striving to improve its non-oil exports, which index was not good enough at the moment.
