Nigeria, Singapore’s trade soars above $217m

By duru emmanuel on September 15, 2014 · BusinessWeek

Nigeria’s envoy to Sin­gapore, Ambassador Nonye Rajis-Okpara, has put the volume of trade between the two countries at over $217 million just as she called for the execution of ex­isting agreements in order to boost economic and bilateral cooperation between the two nations.
Mrs Rajis-Okpara, who stated that Nigeria’s economic relations with Singapore have been on the upbeat in recent times, however, lamented that these are yet to translate into trade boom, particularly when compared with other regions.
Giving statistics of the bi­lateral trade between the two countries, the envoy stated that the volume of export from Singapore to Nigeria in 2013 amounted to S$212 million while exports from Nigeria to Singapore amounted to S$5.4million.
“This figures show that the volume of trade stands signifi­cantly in favour of Singapore,” she noted.
She disclosed that Singa­pore’s major trading partners in 2013 were the European Union (EU), the United States (US), member States of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Australia, China and Japan.
“These six economies joint­ly accounted for 65.9 per cent of total services exports and 62.2 per cent of services im­ports. Singapore’s export with Asia is 40.9 per cent, Europe is 21.9per cent, North America is 16 per cent, while Africa is 2.1 per cent,” she said.
However, she expressed optimism that the trade im­balance between Nigeria and Singapore could be reversed if there is addition of value chain to the goods.
Her words” Imports from Nigeria to Singapore include soya beans, sesame seeds, groundnuts, cashew nuts, co­coa and some precious stones, all in their raw states. The ex­isting gap in the balance of trade could be minimized with the addition of value chain to these produce before exporta­tion.
Besides expanding the manufacturing base, the efforts of government in job creation would be enhanced. However, trade alone does not give you a good grasp of the extent of cooperation between Nigeria and Singapore. We also must also look at the level of invest­ments and economic activities between both countries.”
She advised that the two countries should stick to the agreements signed during and after the 2013 Nigeria-Singa­pore Business Forum. These include: the Memorandum of Uderstanding (MoU) on Trade, Industry and Investment Framework, aimed at fostering greater economic activities, trade and investment, between the Nigeria Import Promotion Commission (NIPC) Interna­tional Enterprise (IE) Singa­pore to establish a Trade and Investment Council; MoU on the Establishment of a Smart City in Abuja between Smart City Plc Nigeria and Surbana International Consultants to establish a Smart City in Abuja and the MoU on Water Treat­ment in Abuja signed between the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) and Hyflux Limited, for water treatment.
The other is the MOU on Abuja FCT Urban Redevelop­ment signed between the Fed­eral Capital Territory Admin­istration (FCTA) and Surbana International Consultants for a master plan urban redevelop­ment of the city that would accommodate the demands of urbanisation.