The Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Rangalah Ghanashyam, on Wednesday said plans had been concluded for the establishment of direct flights between Nigeria and his country in order to improve tourism and trade between the two nations.
Ghanashyam said this at the maiden edition of the monthly Diplomatic Dialogue Series organised by the Nigeria Leadership Initiative in Lagos, where he was the special guest.
The Indian envoy added that the volume of trade between both countries had risen to almost $20bn and was not been affected by the Boko Haram insurgency in the North and the outbreak of Ebola in the South.
He said, “The first thing you need to do between India and Nigeria is to have a direct flight if you want to improve tourism and trade. We don’t have a direct flight. Can you imagine that the largest trading partner of Nigeria in the world doesn’t have a direct connection?
“I’m working with Arik Air; hopefully, they will be able to do something, because at this moment we don’t have any Indian airline that is ready to come independently. So, we’ll start with Nigerian airlines. Once you have people moving easily, the agreements will follow. We don’t have double taxation avoidance agreement; we don’t have investment protection agreement.”
Ghanashyam added that the relationship between the two nations was peculiar and had made it possible for Nigerians to run Indian companies and for Indians to run Nigerian companies; a situation he said was rare in international trade.
He noted that the trade volume between Nigeria and Indian stood at $19.5bn as of April, and was expected to exceed $20bn this year.
The high commissioner also said his country was glad to be the largest importer of oil from Nigeria, but hoped to become number one in gas from its current 10th position.
The President, Nigeria-India Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dr. Umo Itsueli, who also spoke at the event, advised the Federal Government to improve trade relations with countries such as India and China.
He said Nigeria needed to collaborate with other emerging economies in order to actualise the projection that the country could be among the top 10 economies in the world by 2050.
Itsueli noted that Indian companies were second to the Federal Government as the largest employers of labour in Nigeria and had invested in virtual all sectors of the country’s economy, including agriculture, textiles, pharmaceutical, telecoms and Information Technology.
The Chief Executive Officer, NLI, Mr. Yinka Oyinlola, said the dialogue series was initiated to provide a platform for interaction between Nigerian businesses and their foreign counterparts, and to facilitate new opportunities for trade and commerce.
