China has agreed to invest in Nigeria
following a visit from its foreign affairs
minister to Nigeria
- The country said this was in addition to
earlier investments
- Nigeria has withdrawn diplomatic
relationship with Taiwan and agreed to the
One China policy
Wang Yi who is the Chinese foreign
minister has promised that the country
is investing $40 billion as part of the
plan to deepen relationship with
Nigeria.
He made this comment during a press
briefing with his Nigerian counterpart,
Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama on Wednesday,
January 11 adding that this money was
in addition to $22 billion projects
already invested.
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Yi said: “China has already invested or
financed a total number of $22billion
projects here in Nigeria, another
$23billion projects are on-going. In
addition, we are also following up
another over $40billion of investments,
which are in the pipeline.”
China to invest in Nigeria; Taiwanese office
moved to Lagos
Earlier, Yi met with President
Muhammadu Buhari where the
president promised that all agreements
with China will be honoured.
He said: ‘‘This administration is very
serious about infrastructural
development. We want rail, road,
power, skill acquisition for our people.
We ought to have developed beyond this
point, but we neglected infrastructure
when we had the resources.
‘‘Now, we have to collaborate with you,
and we will keep our side of the bargain
in all the agreements we have signed.”
President Buhari had travelled to China
in April on the invitation of President
Xi Jinping and they signed memoranda
of understanding on investing in
Nigeria.
The Chinese foreign minister said
relationship with Nigeria was strong
and said his visit was to implement the
important agreement and cooperation
reached between the Chinese and
Nigerian presidents.
He said: “In order to achieve further
development and prosperity of the two
countries, we need to strengthen our
political mutual trust, deepen
complementarily between our
developments, further expand practical
cooperation and deepen our strategic
partnership.”
Onyeama commended the Chinese
government for the periodic visit to
Africa.
“You know of course that the Peoples
Republic of China has been meeting
regularly with Africa and the forum for
discussing technical cooperation with
African countries, the acronym is
FOCAC
“The last one took place in South Africa
last December and the government of
China made available a total of $60b for
Africa and a number of countries,
including Nigeria are in discussions to
see how much of that could be used to
assist in the various projects that we
have in this country.”
“In area of infrastructure, which is one
of the priority areas in the
diversification programme of this
government from oil to agriculture and
infrastructure, the Chinese government
has been showing a lot of cooperation
with us.”
He said the president’s visit to China
further opened up more areas of
cooperation as the country has invested
between $60b and $80b in Nigeria.
In fostering better relationship with
China, Nigeria withdrew all diplomatic
relations with Taiwan as a country and
withdrew accreditation from Taiwan’s
nationals.
The Taiwanese office in Abuja will be
closed and moved to Lagos as a trade
mission with skeletal staff.
In a joint statement by the Ministers of
Foreign Affairs of both Nigeria and
China, the two countries affirmed their
territorial sovereignty while also
affirming the One China policy.
“The Government of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria recognizes that
there is only one China in the world;
that the Government of the People’s
Republic of China is the sole legal
government representing the whole of
China, and that Taiwan is an
inalienable part of China’s territory.
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