Foreign minister seeks tariff removal to balance Nigeria-China trade

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, has called for a balanced trade relationship between Nigeria and China, emphasising the need to address trade imbalances and promote local refining of resources.

Tuggar made this statement during a one-on-one interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Thursday evening.

“We are also concerned about the trade imbalance. It is something that we have addressed and have been pushing,” Tuggar stated, highlighting the removal of tariffs on cashew nuts and shea butter as a step in the right direction.

“We are saying remove tariffs for all other exports from Nigeria because what China did for the Forum for China Africa Cooperation was to remove tariffs for the least developed countries, and Nigeria is not regarded as a least developed country. Remove all those tariffs for Nigeria so we can address the issue of trade imbalance. These are some of the ongoing discussions.”

The minister also stressed the importance of localising metal refining to maximise Nigeria’s resources.

“We also are collaborating on metals refining. Instead of exporting lithium to China, we are saying to refine it here locally. There is a Chinese group that invested in Nasarawa State, for instance. We want to see more of that,” he said.

Highlighting Nigeria’s push for industrial growth, Tuggar called for greater utilisation of special economic zones by Chinese investors.

“We want to see them utilise our special economic zones to locate the electric vehicle assembling plant here in Nigeria so that Nigeria can become an economic hub since we already have the lithium that is used for batteries for the electric vehicles.”

Addressing concerns about alleged exploitation by Chinese businesses in Nigeria, the minister stressed the need for a balanced perspective.

“We are dealing with it by ensuring that we formalise all these activities, we get them to invest, we get them to establish supply chains,” he explained.

Tuggar also clarified that illegal mining and other irregular activities involve multiple nationalities, including Nigerians, and should not be solely attributed to Chinese nationals.

“It is not just Chinese. It does not make it right, but we should not single out China to say everything they are doing is bad. Chinese citizens are doing more good than harm in terms of investing in our economy, creating jobs for our youthful population,” he added.