ABUJA – Plans are on for Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria to set up a joint chamber of commerce to improve trade between the two countries.
The Equatorial Guinea Ambassador to Nigeria, Amb. Job Mbengono, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday.
Mbengono said developing cooperation between both chambers of commerce would create trade opportunities and enhance the economic relations which he described as “very low“.
“We have been focusing on political relationship.
“Now the efforts we are making is to attract Nigeria investors, put the two chambers of commerce together so that they start working so that we can benefit from the experience of the Nigeria private sector.
“We are at the preliminary stage of that; two years ago a group of Nigerian businessmen went to Malabo; they had a Nigerian week where we had the first interaction between business people from both countries.
“We want to do the second stage of this by inviting concrete people; we have already identified some sectors in which we have interest.
“In Equatorial Guinea we have the Chamber of Commerce that is new there.
“They are learning so we want to invite them here to interact so we can continue what we started two years ago and see how we can go to concrete actions that we can use to develop the private sector, learning from the Nigerian perspective.“
He, however, expressed optimism that establishing enhanced relations between both chambers of commerce would lead to the establishment of a joint chamber by 2015.
“I think early next year, we should have something concretely done.
“I can’t tell you concretely how they work; what as an ambassador I’m doing is to let Equatorial Guinea know about the interest the Nigerian side may have and then we sit down as both institutions and see how they are going to interact.
“We would offer Nigerians the possibility of what they can do in Equatorial Guinea and also I would discuss with the chamber of commerce in Malabo the possibility of Equatorial Guineans investing in Nigeria.
“If you look at the market in Nigeria, it is a big opportunity; the private sector in Equatorial Guinea is not as experienced as that of Nigeria. “
The envoy said that establishing a joint chamber of commerce would provide opportunities for businessmen in Equatorial Guinea to trade beyond their borders.
He said that Equatorial Guinea sought to enhance cooperation in agriculture, banking, civil aviation, education, among others.
He also said that both countries were working towards improving on their bilateral air services agreements to ease transportation.
He said that although there were flights to Equatorial Guinea from Nigeria, more needed to be done to also encourage economic relations.
He added that proposals from both countries to enhance flight operations had been received by both governments.
“We have sent the proposal and maybe in one year we would have something concrete.
“The civil aviation sector is delicate; there are many technical things that have to be arranged before we start working concretely in terms of flying.
“We can speed up the process and we are working on that. The only thing we need to do is convince and encourage companies to take advantage of the legal framework we have made available.
“One thing is what we may want as diplomats and as politicians and the other thing what the companies hope to achieve in terms of making profits,“ he said. (NAN)