Nigeria,Pakistan to revamp joint commission, strengthen economic ties
The Federal Government has agreed to revamp the Nigeria-Pakistan joint commission to provide both countries veritable platform to strengthen economic and trade relations.
The Permanent Secretary, Foreign Affairs Ministry Amb. Olukunle Bamgbose, made this known this on Tuesday in Abuja when the Pakistani High Commissioner designate to Nigeria, Maj.-Gen Wqar Kingravi (Rtd) visited him.
While expressing satisfaction with the level of defence and military cooperation between both countries, Bamgbose however, said that there was need for improvement in the area of trade and economic relations.
He noted that Nigeria-Pakistan cooperation was very historical and that military training had been very consistent.
“The two countries have been collaborating in the area of defence, there have been exchange programmes between the armed forces of the two countries especial in the area of training,” he said.
The High Commissioner earlier said that he is in Nigeria to strengthen the economic and military relations between the two countries.
Kkingravi said:“We have long term relations in all things especially in the areas of political and military, but in trade and commercial relations we are lacking behind I will say.
“However there is a lot of room for improvement in the field of trade and commercial, cultural exchange, agricultural, medical and education.
“We have trade relationship in the area of agriculture and finished products with Nigeria”.
Kingravi however expressed concern on the volume of trade which he said was not encouraging due to certain restriction on the importation of rice into Nigeria.
“The volume of trade is not much but we would like to further increase that,” he said.
“We can cooperate in other areas such as infrastructure development, in the field of oil and gas, agricultural equipment and medical field. So, there are many fields that we can have our cooperation,” he said
He noted that Pakistan had been assisting Nigeria in area of fighting terrorism and would continue to do so.
He said: “In the last few years we have seen more collaboratives in the area of fighting the insurgency because the two countries faced similar problem.
“We are facing issue of terrorism and Pakistan has a lot of experience in the last 15 years of fighting this problem.
“Our armed forces are ready to share their experience with the Nigeria armed forces in this area in fighting the Boko Haram and any other militancy.
“Our defence industry is capable of providing not only mid level but high level technology of arms and ammunition and equipment to fight this militancy and help Nigeria armed forces in gaining experiences against this militant”.
NAN reports that as at January, both countries’ trade volume has reached close to one trillion dollars from 500 million dollars in 2015.
This revelation was made during the 70th Independence Day celebration of Pakistan in Lagos by the Honourary Consul-General of Pakistan in Nigeria, Ahmed Yakasai, who said that diplomatic relations between Nigeria and Pakistan predated Nigeria’s independence.
