The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Nigerian government have agreed to establish a Business Council, which will bring together business leaders from both nations to boost bilateral trade.
Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama, Nigeria’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, and his Saudi Arabian counterpart, Prince Abdalla Al-Saud, made the announcement during a meeting that is aimed at reinforcing bilateral relations between the two countries.
Both countries have committed to diversify and expand trade volumes, as well as collaborate on security concerns, according to Mr. Onyeama, who also noted that the partnership between Nigeria and Saudi Arabia will include Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) activities.
Geoffrey Onyeama Foreign Affairs Minister Nigeria
“And we are also very keen to diversify; two big countries looking to increase the volume of trade between our two countries. We already have cooperation and this is through a Joint Commission, so we are hoping to have another one. The last one took place over six years ago, we are hoping to have another one by the end of the year so that we can identify and put in place a roadmap for future cooperation between our countries because the areas of cooperation are many. In the areas of security, which we discussed, we have a global challenge of terrorism and insurgency and state/non-state actors destabilizing countries across the world and the need for us to address these global challenges together.”
He further added that both countries also discussed multilateral cooperation in the frames of international organizations such as the United Nations, as well as building solidarity in such areas.
Prince Abdalla Al-Saud said, “Saudi Arabia and Nigeria also discussed strengthening those bonds to a higher level and focused a bit on how to increase economic, cooperation, business cooperation and building the business relationships between both countries.”
“Facilitating engagements between our two business communities, and this is a priority that we will focus on in the next few months. And as part of that, we will also focus on making sure that the joint commission meets again to pursue all of those areas that can strengthen the bonds and the opportunities,” Prince Al-Saud added.
