BREXIT: Awolowo seeks stronger economic ties with UK

THE Executive Director of Nigerian Export Promotion Council, Olusegun Awolowo, has said that Nigeria needs to maintain a stronger economic relationship with Britain, as members of the Commonwealth, so as to boost the nations’ trade relations.

He said this would also create a boost to the efforts of the Federal Government to diversify the Nigerian economy.

Awolowo, spoke against the backdrop of prediction by the Commonwealth Secretariat that the existing trade relations between Nigeria and United Kingdom (UK) was likely to increase from $3.7 billion to $4.5 billion in the wake of eventual exit of Britain from European Union.

Besides, the Commonwealth noted that with the proposed Trade and Investment Cooperation Agreement (TICA) between both countries, the UK’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) could increase to over 4 billion pounds from 1 billion pounds, by the year 2030, if both countries implemented programmes to improve trade competitiveness and ease of doing business between them.

Awolowo, speaking at a one-day stakeholders’ forum on Brexit with the theme ‘Brexit: Opportunities and Challenges for Nigeria,’ explained that the objective of the forum, which was organised in collaboration with the Commonwealth Secretariat, was to enable participants have a full understanding of the implications of Brexit on the socio-economic and political environment of Nigeria.

According to a Commonwealth report: “Nigeria’s export of services to UK may be further strengthened with the new trade and investment arrangements given that a number of professional service sectors are patterned after the UK, as enough similarities exist between the UK and Nigeria.”

The report indicated that there was the need to deepen the trade and investments engagements between Nigeria and the UK post-Brexit, adding that there was a range of new products and services that Nigeria could market to the UK, therefore helping to diversify its export basket.