At a recent interactive session with journalists in his home in Bodija, Ibadan, Oyo State, Dr. Farounbi said in the last two years, Nigeria’s efforts in The Philippines had resulted in creating a cordial relationship between both countries based on mutual trade and investment opportunities.
“Over the years, we have been focusing on foreign direct investments. We have been trying to lure The Philippines into the Nigerian market, which is the largest in Africa,” he said.
The ambassador informed that Nigeria had been maintaining a healthy diplomatic relationship with The Philippines for over five decades now. “And as a result of this relationship, we focus on several areas. For instance, in 2010, the volume of trade between Nigeria and The Philippines was about $1million. Meanwhile, in the last one year, we have increased the volume of trade between the two countries to over $30 million,” he said.
The ambassador informed that other areas where Nigeria was exposing the nation’s opportunities and potential to The Philippines included agriculture, tourism, health and human capital development. He said the mission of Nigeria in the Asian country was to look at areas where the country was good and tap into the people’s ingenuity. Some of such areas, he noted, included education, tourism and construction.
“The Filipinos are very good in education. They have about 1,800 universities to a population of 100 million people. Their oldest university is now 103 years and what we do presently is to create avenues for Nigerians to go to school in The Philippines, where education is cheaper when compared to education in The United States, The United Kingdom or Canada,” he explained.
In the area of tourism, Dr. Farounbi told journalists that people of The Philippines were the largest income earners in the world, with six million tourists every year.
“We are presently working on the modalities to get them interested in partnering Nigeria in this area, and we believe our tourism will get the necessary boost as soon as possible,” he said. Also in the area of agriculture, Chief Farounbi explained that Nigeria would soon begin to introduce the Nigerian agricultural products to the Asian country. Already, he noted, Nigeria had exported some cocoa to The Philippines in February this year. He said The Philippines is the largest producer of coconut, making over 100 products from coconut. He also informed that The Philippines make a lot of money from fruits, especially mango.
“About three Nigerians have large farms in The Philippines that serve as models. Given the nature of their land, the Filipinos have small yams when compared to what we have in Nigeria. And as a result, we have taken our own yams there for them to plant.”
Dr.Farounbi added that the two countries were currently discussing the possibility of The Philippines buying crude oil from Nigeria. “We are also working on attracting their biggest brewery to have a plant in Nigeria, because The Philippines export a lot of beer to Africa,” he said.
Farounbi said the Nigerian embassy in Manila had succeeded in wooing two universities in that country to Nigeria, adding that the two were in Kwara and Osun states. He said another one might be coming to Abuja before the end of the year.
The ambassador also said there were over 4,000 Nigerian students in The Philippines. While explaining some of the challenges faced by the embassy in attracting investments to Nigeria, Ambassador Farounbi said the present security situation in the country was a major trouble. He added, however, that even The Philippines had been battling insurgency for 22 years.
“They have been fighting insurgency for more than 22 years now, so it is a global threat and their government has always supported us in everything we do. On our part too, we reciprocate the gesture easily.”
Another challenge, he noted, was the information flow between the two countries. “On this, I have granted interviews with many of their newspapers, particularly, the business dailies, and we also make a lot of business information available to them. We also organise briefing sessions with their business community.”
Dr. Farounbi explained that the country constituted about 28 per cent of all maritime workers from all over the world, adding that The Philippines had been assisting in training Nigerians in maritime ventures. “Just recently, Nigerian Defence Academy sent a 32-man delegation to The Philippines to study how the military is being used for disaster management, and in the next few months, another group will visit for similar training.”
He said there were no fewer than 8,300 Filipinos presently working in Nigeria, productively engaged in various sectors of the Nigerian economy including, oil and gas, construction, maritime and health.
“We are looking forward to a lot of possibilities emanating from the relationship between Nigeria and the Philippines and we believe that cordial business relationship will translate into effective growth and development between the two countries,” Dr.Farounbi affirmed.
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