KEY NOTE SPEECH BY THE LEADER OF DELEGATION & REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA  

Your Excellencies,

I bring to you warm felicitations and good tidings from his Excellency, the President & Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. Over the past seven years of assumption of leadership of Africa’s most populous Country, our President has spent a lot of time and energy building bridges and establishing friendships across the World. He has consistently preached the obvious to his foreign friends that Nigeria is the preferred investment destination for foreign investment in Africa and indeed the black world.

Mr President has specifically taken a personal interest in relations with the Peoples Republic of China, perhaps because of the numerous similarities between Nigeria and China. Nigeria has been to the African continent what China represents to the World. Our President recounts his experiences on previous visits to China with relish and would have loved to be here personally but for other pressing demands on his attention at home as he rounds up the good works of his second messianic coming. However, as a further proof of his whole hearted commitment to this relationship, he has sent here with me a delegation of 3 serving Ministers, 4 heads of Governmental Parastatals and a number of captains of Nigeria’s Industries.  

This forum jointly organised by the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce is scheduled to hold here between today and tomorrow with a similar version replicated in Shenzhen between the 20^th and 21^st of July 2006. It is worthy of note that this is the very first time that the NIPC will be holding two sessions of its BIFs in any Country at any given time and this further underscores the pride of place which the Peoples Republic of China occupies in our minds.

Being the 4^th in a series of BIF organised by the NIPC in China, the main objective of this forum is obviously to build on the successes of previous Business Investment Fora by capitalizing on the existing excellent Sino-Nigeria relations. At previous fora, we had taken time to market Nigeria and her immense investment opportunities to Chinese Business Investors, to propagate the reform programmes of President Olusegun Obasanjo as well as the concerted steps being taken by the Nigerian Government to liberalise the economy as a necessary aphrodisiac to stimulate foreign investment inflow.

At this Forum, we shall not bore you with specifics of steps being taken or investment opportunities that abound in Nigeria and her friendly investment climate. There are already success stories of a number of Chinese Entrepreneurs who hearkened to our call and are already doing business in Nigeria. Luckily a few of them like ZTE, Huawei and Alcatel are here and I hope that the programme of events will permit them an opportunity to tell their stories.

While reform is a continuous process, we shall be telling you about the effects of the reform programme and what the 7 years of President Obasanjo’s good leadership have ushered in, which makes Nigeria an even more preferred investment destination, hence the theme of the forum: “Nigeria’s reforming and liberalising economy: Prospects and opportunities for enhanced trade relations between Nigeria and China”.

This forum will therefore place more emphasis on one-on-one discussions and interactions between business persons from both Countries with the specific aim of ensuring that an unprecedented number of business intentions and understandings are consummated before our departure for Shenzhen.

Let me use this opportunity to wish all participants fruitful and lively discussions and interactions that will provide a springboard for even more robust trade relations between our Countries

Thank you all.