Nigeria’s Trade Surplus with Netherlands Healthy—Envoy

By Dipo Olowookere

Nigerian Ambassador to the Netherlands, Mr Oji Ngofa, has described the nation’s trade surplus with the Netherlands as “healthy.”

According to him, the European country is currently Nigeria’s largest trading partner, with trade volume of over €3 billion (about N1.2 trillion).

He explained that the above figure was harvested from the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for the first quarter of 2018.

President Muhammadu Buhari left Nigeria on Sunday morning for a meeting in The Hague, Netherlands.

The Nigerian envoy, during his background briefing to journalists on President Buhari’s arrival to the Netherlands today, said the Nigerian leader will hold talks with the Dutch Prime Minister, Mr Mark Rutte on “security and economic development of Nigeria.”

He said during the visit, top Nigerian government officials would be on hand to have bilateral meetings with their Dutch counterparts in different areas, all geared towards improving the security, economy and governance of Nigeria.

Mr Ngofa said Nigeria was working assiduously to diversify its export base and increase the non-oil exports from Nigeria to the Netherlands, in line with the administration’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).

“The latest figures released by the NBS (Q1) 2018 shows that the Netherlands is currently Nigeria’s largest trading partner, with trade volume of over €3 billion (about N1.2 trillion).

“This total is composed of imports from the Netherlands worth €726 million and exports to the Netherlands of €2.29 billion.

“Nigeria, therefore, has a healthy trade surplus with the Netherlands. ‘However, a majority of the value of the exports are petroleum based,” the ambassador told newsmen.