13 November 2024

Thank you, Chair.

Good morning, Colleagues,

First of all, I would like to join others to extend a warm welcome to the delegation of Nigeria led by His Excellency, Permanent Secretary Nura Abba Rimi.

I would also like to thank the Government of Nigeria and the WTO Secretariat for the preparation of this review, and appreciate the insightful and lively comments by the Discussant, Her Excellency Ambassador Athaliah MOLOKOMME.

China commends Nigeria’s continuing progress in economic recovery and development over the review period. After last review, Nigeria’s economy had experienced recession, and severe contraction due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. But thanks to the strong and timely government policies, including Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, Nigeria’s economy resumed positive growth of 3.62% in 2021 and has kept stable growth since then.

China appreciates Nigeria’s remarkable efforts to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth. They include, inter alia, the reforms regarding the foreign exchange rate, fuel subsidies, fiscal discipline, and business environment, legislation on data protection and electronic signatures, and also strategies such as the National Development Plan 2021-2025 and National Anti-Corruption Strategies. All the above-mentioned actions are conducive to a stable socio-political environment and long-term economic growth.

China thinks highly of Nigeria’s contributions to the multilateral trading system. We encourage Nigeria to continue playing an active role in agricultural negotiations as the focal point of the African Group and to promote the practical progress in order to have substantial outcome by MC14, to be held in Africa. Nigeria deposited its instrument of acceptance of the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies last June, and became the second African WTO Member to do so. It has also submitted its schedule of specific commitments under the Services Domestic Regulation. We commend Nigeria’s active participation in Joint Statement Initiatives (JSIs) on e-commerce and investment facilitation for development, and welcome Nigeria’s participation in environment-related initiatives, such as the Dialogue on Plastics Pollution and Environmentally Sustainable Plastics Trade.

I would also take this opportunity to highly commend and appreciate Ambassador Adamu’s personal contributions to this organization, as the head of Nigeria’s Mission, and under other WTO hats, like the CTG chair last year and the TPRB chair now. We really appreciate all the work you have done for the multilateral trading system.

Regarding regional economic cooperation, Nigeria has been a member of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) since its establishment. It signed the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area in July 2019 and ratified it in December 2020. These efforts will surely help improve the integration of Nigeria into the global economy.

Bilaterally, China and Nigeria have strong economic complementarities and great potential for further cooperation. As our statistics shows, in 2023, China’s trade with Nigeria totaled 22.6 billion USD. According to the Secretariat’s Report, China is now the 3rd largest destination of Nigeria’s exports and 2nd largest source of its imports.

This September, during the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation, China and Nigeria issued a joint statement on Establishing a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and Building a High-level China-Nigeria Community with a Shared Future, which will inject further impetus to bilateral cooperations. Regarding the WTO and multilateral trading system, the two sides are committed to supporting the WTO and multilateral trading system, opposing trade protectionism, and promoting trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation. Thereby, we look forward to our deeper and broader cooperation in the WTO.

For the purpose of this review, China submitted questions regarding the duty-free policy, Import Adjustment Tax, Export Expansion Grants, tax or investment incentives for local production of electric vehicles, and new policies supporting fishery development, etc. We are looking forward to studying the replies from Nigeria.

Finally, we wish Nigeria’s Trade Policy Review a full success.

Thank you, Chair.