Nigeria, UK trade may rise to $4.5bn after BREXIT

The Commonwealth Secretariat has predicted that the existing trade between Nigeria and the United Kingdom may increase to $4.5 billion from the present $3.7bn after Britain exits the European Union (EU).

This was disclosed yesterday during a stakeholders’ forum on BREXIT (Britain Exit) in Abuja to discuss the challenges and opportunities available after the country leaves the EU as was decided by its referendum in 2016.

The Executive Director, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Mr Olusegun Awolowo, in his address, said the Commonwealth Secretariat chose Nigeria after India to host the forum due to the importance of the country in Britain’s bilateral trade relations.

“We are glad that the Commonwealth took it up to help us with this forum to look at the impact and prepare. With this, we will be able to mitigate the challenges that will come with BREXIT,” Awolowo said.

The Commonwealth also said with the proposed Trade and Investment Cooperation Agreement (TICA) between both countries, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) could rise to over four billion pounds from one billion pounds by 2030, if they implement programmes to improve trade competitiveness and ease of doing business.

Awolowo noted that the EU is one of Nigeria’s greatest trade partners, but that Britain is the largest trade destination for Nigeria.

He said, “There are opportunities and challenges in it but we will take the advantages and one of such is that we have historic ties, the same language and the highest number of Nigerians in the Diaspora are in UK - over two million.

“These are just a ready foundation for trade. Even when we have challenges with the EU, we can negotiate directly with the UK and continue to push Nigerian goods into the UK,” Awolowo hinted.