Entrepreneurs urged to leverage on US-Nigeria $10.4bn trade

The US government has promised to deepen its partnership with the Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce (NACC) to harness the entrepreneurial spirit of Nigerians towards assisting them to build successful businesses.

The Head of Commercial section, Lagos Consulate of the US embassy, Dr. David Russell disclosed this in a chat with Daily Trust on the sidelines of the NACC Breakfast Meeting on ‘US Mission’s CommercialFocused Activities in Nigeria’ held in Lagos.

Daily Trust reports that U.S. goods and services trade with Nigeria totaled an estimated $10.4 billion in 2019. Exports were $5.3 billion and imports were $5.1 billion, according to the office of the United States Trade Representative.

Russell said the US government is committed to helping Nigeria and other African countries in their recovery drive from the COVID-19 pandemic.

He listed some of the focus areas of the US to include the digital economy, agriculture, investment in women and women businesses to protect the vulnerable.

He asked Nigerian businesses to take advantage of the various opportunities to harness their potential.

Russell said, “We see tremendous potential in Nigeria as we are looking to recover from the pandemic, there is tremendous entrepreneurial spirit within this country that we want to harness, ensure that we get adequate infrastructural opportunities for those folks to be able to channel that entrepreneurial spirit into successful businesses.”

President of the NACC, Dame Adebola Williams explained that one of the key imperatives of the Chamber “Is to continually engage the US Mission/Embassy in Nigeria on all trade and development-related activities that are of useful relevance to the members of the chamber.”