NIGERIA MOVES TO RESUSCITATE BILATERAL RELATIONSHIP WITH BRAZIL
By NKIRUKA NNOROM
The Nigerian-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NBCCI) said that plans have been initiated to revive bilateral relationship that had existed between Nigeria and Brazil as far back as 1991 so as to forge close ties with people and government of the country.
To this effect, the Chamber said that it has already sent out letters to the Brazilian Embassy here in Nigeria, and a formal relationship has commenced between them. Speaking to newsmen at the end of the inaugural summit to mark the re-launch of the Chamber in Lagos, Hon. Agnes Shobanjo, a Director of the Chamber, said that the body wants to use the occasion to awaken the interest of Brazilian business people resident in Nigeria that this country is interested in having bilateral relationship with them.
She said, 'We want to let them know that we are interested in having bilateral relationship with their country such that we will be able to exchange trade mission; we will be able to exchange culture. You know the Brazilian culture is very rich, so is Nigerian culture; we have a lot to exchange there. We want to be able to relate with that country through the Embassy in Abuja and through all the existing industrial improvement that we have in Nigeria.
You know so much is being done by the Ministry of Trade and Investment concerning improvement in commercial activities in the country. So, we want to try to see as much as possible that we key into the thinking of government as to the expansion of the borders-the trade border, the economic border, cultural border and socio-political borders between the two countries, so that a big corridor can be opened where investment can improve between the two countries.' She noted that despite the initial hitches that nearly crippled activities of the body when it started in 1991, she was optimistic of success.
'If others are doing it, our sister countries in Africa, they are working well with Nigeria. You know that Ghana is doing well with us. We have all other African countries that are doing well. You know that G-8 is doing well. We want to be able to do a lot through our own effort to gear up government so that Nigerians who want to do business with Brazilians will have the opportunity. We want to open up the corridor,' she stated.
Addressing the audience earlier, the Secretary General, His Royal Majesty Leo Ezebuiro, who spoke on behalf of the president, Amb. Olusegn Olusola, stated that a new economic, political, cultural, diplomatic and technological chapter was being charted in the relationship between both countries, saying that it will bring about accelerated development between the two emerging economies.