Nigeria’s current account was buoyed last year by €6.5 billion, courtesy of oil and gas exports to Spain during the period.

The Ambassador of Spain to Nigeria, Alfonso Sebastan de Erice who disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja when he paid a courtesy call on the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, said “Spain is one of Nigeria’s best clients.”

He however stressed that his country would diversify its trade relations with Nigeria by patronizing other commodities in the country.

“Yes, we are very happy with the exchanges that we have with Nigeria. We need the oil but we want to diversify because we think it’s very important that our economic relations will not be only in oil and gas only. We have to diversify,” he said.

De Erice explained that his country was also disposed to build on its cooperation with Nigeria in the area of agriculture. “We want to cooperate with you in agriculture, we have very good agricultural industry. We have comparative advantage in tourism, manufacturing, while you have people who are very well prepared.

“We have several treaties that allow us to work here. It’s a domain that we will have to explore. For us, the oil business is important because we need it, but we want to diversity and I know that Nigerian authorities also want to diversify,” he said.

He also expressed Spain’s preparedness to assist Nigeria in the fight to combat the growing insurgency, explaining that his country had experienced terrorism in the past and know how it feels to be confronted with the menace.

“Spain suffered terrorism in 2014 when 2000 people were killed. We will support Nigeria in fighting terrorism. You can count on Spain either in development, security or immigration matters.”

He disclosed that a counter terrorism meeting has been scheduled for July 28, 2015, in Madrid, where stakeholders would brainstorm on how best to frontally address the menace across the globe.

Dogara called on the Spanish business community to invest in agriculture, solid minerals, energy and manufacturing in Nigeria so as to generate employment for the teeming unemployed youths in the country.

The Speaker further called for close parliamentary collaboration between the two countries and assured that Nigeria’s parliament would ensure the domestication of all the treaties signed with Spain.