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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Nigeria, T&T establish Chamber of Commerce

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20110222

Both T&T and Nige­ria stand to ben­e­fit from the es­tab­lish­ment of a joint Cham­ber of Com­merce. The Nige­ria/Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of Com­merce pro­vide tremen­dous op­por­tu­ni­ties for prof­it gen­er­a­tion through pro­duc­tive ven­tures be­tween the two coun­tries said Niger­ian High Com­mis­sion­er to T&T, Musa John Jen. "It is com­mon knowl­edge that com­merce and trade be­tween na­tions are the key to the strength­en­ing of bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ships and the es­tab­lish­ment of clos­er part­ner­ships and col­lab­o­ra­tion in the com­mand­ing sec­tors of the econ­o­my of both coun­tries," he said at the Cham­ber's launch last Sat­ur­day at the Trinidad Hilton and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, St Ann's.

He lament­ed that not enough busi­ness was done be­tween the two coun­tries in the past. "Af­ter 48 years of for­mal diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween T&T and Nige­ria not much has been achieved in terms of mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial link­ages, part­ner­ships or col­lab­o­ra­tive ven­tures be­tween the two coun­tries in terms of trade and com­merce, cul­ture, tourism, in­dus­tries, air and sea trans­port, ed­u­ca­tion­al ex­change pro­grammes etc," he said.

Since then, he said, progress has been made in the en­er­gy field. "How­ev­er sig­nif­i­cant progress has been made in the area of crude oil im­por­ta­tion by T&T from Nige­ria and ex­port of jet fu­el, urea fer­tilis­er and house­hold items to Nige­ria from T&T." He de­scribed the launch of the Cham­ber as "aus­pi­cious and time­ly" giv­en that 2011 has been de­clared the year of African de­scent by the Unit­ed Na­tions. "This Cham­ber can be fa­cil­i­tat­ed with ease through­out the es­tab­lish­ment of sim­i­lar plat­forms in both coun­tries to cre­ate an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment for con­duc­tive busi­ness part­ner­ships, in­vest­ments or mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial ex­changes to take place."

The idea for the Cham­ber was borne from both Nige­ri­ans and Trinida­di­ans, he said. "The Niger­ian T&T Cham­ber was an idea nur­tured by promi­nent Nige­ri­ans and Trinida­di­ans here in T&T for sev­er­al years. It is hoped that in time the Cham­ber will grad­u­ate to a Cari­com-ECOW­AS Cham­ber," he said. He al­so said a sim­i­lar Cham­ber will be reg­is­tered in Nige­ria in three months. "This will fa­cil­i­tate easy link­ages be­tween Trin­bag­on­ian cor­po­rate or­gan­i­sa­tions and gen­uine busi­ness out­fits in Nige­ria for ease in busi­ness trans­ac­tions," he said.

He said ar­eas of in­ter­est be­tween the two coun­tries in­clude oil and gas, min­ing, fi­nance and agri­cul­ture among oth­ers. He added that Nige­ria is one of the largest African coun­tries and has a good cred­it rat­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. "In 2008 Mer­rill Lynch, a US based glob­al fi­nan­cial man­age­ment and ad­vi­so­ry com­pa­ny in 2008 iden­ti­fied Nige­ria as the least vul­ner­a­ble com­pa­ny in the world."


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