Nigeria is in talks to secure trade agreements with several Global South countries and Gulf states as it seeks to spur investment into critical infrastructure needed to become a trillion-dollar economy by 2030, the country’s trade minister told Semafor.
A bilateral trade deal agreed this week with the United Arab Emirates will see the mutual elimination of tariffs on thousands of goods. It is one of many future partnerships that Nigeria hopes will increase investment in its energy, power, road, and rail projects, said Trade Minister Jumoke Oduwole in an interview.
“We have been pursuing some other agreements that are at different stages,” said Oduwole. “We are looking at countries whose investors want to invest in big infrastructure projects.” China, Brazil, India, the Gulf region, and Latin America have been the main countries or regions where Nigeria has been cultivating relationships in recent years that could yield potential investments. Oduwole added that these recent discussions marked “a clear evolution” in Nigeria’s approach to trade.
Companies from the UAE backed projects worth about $110 billion in Africa between 2019 and 2023, and in November the Emirates announced an initiative to invest $1 billion in African AI infrastructure. Nigeria became only the second African country after Mauritius with which the UAE has agreed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, the Emirates’ signature bilateral trade agreement first entered into with India in 2022.