China’s new ideas, policies for Nigeria, Africa

In the bid to deepen bilateral cooperation between Nigeria and China, the Chinese government through its Department of West Asian and African Affairs, Ministry of Commerce, Beijing, China, has expressed the need for the two countries to sustain their diplomatic ties, by way of establishing a Win-Win cooperation to boost their economies.

According to the Ministry’s Deputy Director General, Mr. Cao Jiachang, who intimated that in a short period of time, the Chinese government has successfully achieved an unprecedented economic growth, through significant exchange for advantageous trade deals with some African countries, there has been an increase in local job opportunities in Nigeria, resulting from the two countries healthy relationship, especially in the key areas of the countries’ economies.

He also pointed out that maintaining healthy diplomatic ties with Nigeria is important to the Chinese government, not only for the fact that Nigeria has a huge population and consumer market, but also, the two countries share many remarkable similarities, which can substantially strengthen bilateral relationship between them.

On the basis of the current economic and trade cooperation zones established, he encourages for enhanced cooperation in industrialization and modernized farming, adding that, “Nigeria is China’s third largest investment destination in Africa and China’s accumulated investment in Nigeria has reached billions of US dollars, as over 45 per cent of Chinese private firms have established in Nigeria, in the fields of agriculture, textile industry, construction materials and so on.”


Within the framework of the China-Africa intended Win-Win Cooperation, Cao told the meeting that the Chinese government and the Nigerian government have worked together to build substantial economic and trade cooperation zones in Nigeria and Nigeria currently has become China’s third largest trade partner and second largest export market in Africa, while China is Nigeria’s third largest trade partner.

He further emphasized that China and Nigeria have achieved remarkable results in cooperation in infrastructure construction and Nigeria is a country where Chinese enterprises undertook most infrastructure projects in the whole of Africa, pointing out the on-going Lagos-Abidjan road under construction by a Chinese construction company.

However, both Nigeria and China are recognized as big developing countries, as each has its own advantages in the fields of resources such as, manpower, market, and both countries’ economies are highly complementary and remarkable. In the near future, both countries are expected to have the strongest and most consistent bilateral cooperation. This is evident, going by the rate at which they both accelerate to push forward their economic and trade cooperation to a broader and higher level.


In view of the foregoing therefore, Cao, in his understanding of the Chinese government’s ability to increase trade in Nigeria and other African countries, where they share strong bilateral ties, urges the governments of most of these African countries to make concerted efforts towards making the intended Win-Win cooperation a success.

He said, “If there are no contributions from governments of these African countries, it would be difficult for the Chinese government to consolidate the intended relationship. In Nigeria for instance, we have strong presence and have maintained good partnership with the government in building various levels of infrastructure there. We highly cherish the bilateral ties between our two governments.


We have several Chinese enterprises that have established in Nigeria and in Guangzhou, China, we also have a large number of Nigerian enterprises springing up, and so you can see that both countries have promising future co-operations.” He also noted under the new development between Nigeria and China, both sides are expected to join hands in ensuring that they maintain quality products standard.


By and large, both sides are expected to play a role in ensuring production quality, given the fact that a lot of Nigerian businessmen are comfortable trading in China, especially in the city of Guangzhou, just as there are large numbers of Chinese traders in Nigeria. “We need promotion in various fields between our two countries, and Africa attitude towards China, especially Nigeria is all the way positive”, he added.