China explores Nigeria’s silk industry to deepen $7.2b trade ties

Speaking at China Homelife exhibition in Lagos recently, China’s Commercial Consular, Gao Hongliang, noted that his country’s interest in Nigeria hinges on the population and potential for growth.

He said: “In recent years, the friendship between China and Nigeria has been further strengthened, high level exchanges have become closer, political mutual trust has deepened, bilateral economic and trade cooperation have achieved fruitful results, and the scale of trade has continued to expand.

“From January to June this year, the bilateral trade volume between China and Nigeria reached $7.2billion. It increased by 7.6% year on year”.

He added that China and Nigeria have strong economic complementarities, good cooperation momentum, huge potential for cooperation and broad development space, while expressing optimism that Chinese and Nigerian enterprises participating in the Expo will make full use of the new platform to extensively explore new areas of cooperation and open a new window for bilateral economic and trade exchanges.

Also, the Secretary General of International Silk Union, Jianming Fei, said findings on Nigeria’s demand for silk had doubled in the past three years which he anticipated would establish a manufacturing base in Africa in no distant time.

He said: “I came to Nigeria to sow the seeds of silk in Nigeria through ‘One Belt and One Road’, promote the trade of silk and promote the development of silk industry.

“According to the statistics of the China Chamber of Commerce for textile import and export, the amount of silk goods imported from Nigeria, South Africa and Morocco in Africa has doubled in the past three years, which shows that Africans love silk, and the silk trade has great potential in Africa”.