Indonesia, Nigeria Strengthen Economic Ties

The Nigerian government and its Indonesia counterpart have signed a Memorandum of Understanding MOU on a new deal  involving the  Indonesian government-owned Mining Corporation,  P. T. Timah.
The new business worth billions of dollars is expected to improve the Nigeria-Indonesia bilateral trade status which dropped from $4 billion in 2014 to $2 billion in 2016 and also boost the nation’s solid minerals and mining sector. Performing the signing of the Joint Venture agreement JVC and MOU by representatives of the two governments, the Indonesian Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Harry Purwanto said his home government through the largest mining firm was ready to make massive investment in Nigeria after a careful study of the great potential in the solid mineral and mining subsector of the economy.

He added that there were concrete plans by the government of Indonesia to expand its investments into the oil and gas sector through the establishment of refineries as well as the health sector by setting up of pharmaceutical manufacturing companies.
While stressing that the move was in line with the Nigerian government diversification exercise, he said that the deal would spur an increase in the nation’s non-oil revenue earnings.
He added, “I know Nigeria has great potential, let us use our excellent relationship to support each other in strategic areas of competence especially now that world economies are focusing on high-capacity development towards year 2020.”
Signing on behalf of the Nigerian partners, Senator Annie Okonkwo, who is also the chairman of Topwide Ventures, an indigenous solid minerals and mining company, expressed the preparedness of his company and the country   to fulfil the obligations in the partnership agreements to expedite the commencement of the project.

He said, “Nigeria is interested more than ever before in investing heavily in the non-oil revenue sectors like agriculture, mining and solid minerals, iron and steel development as well as manufacturing to grow its economic potential that has been undermined for decades. This development would see Nigeria increase its production capacity in the sector to meet export demands from around the globe before the end of 2018.”

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