Introduction
During Nigeria’s hosting of the 2010 D8 meeting in Nigeria, Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina paid an official visit to Abuja followed by the opening of the Bangladesh High Commission in Abuja
Nigeria in 2016. Trade and investment, agriculture and tourism are chief areas for cooperation between the two countries.
Ultimately, I think having clarity of purpose and going about the relations with eyes wide open about the need for
expanding trade and investments anchored on a confident and willing
private sector allows both sides to align incentives and to create the binational interest for the desired goal. Nigeria Bangladesh relations which refer to the bilateral engagements between the
two countries.
Both Nigeria and
Bangladesh are members of international organizations like Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Developing 8 (D8) Countries etc.
Events in the evolving relations between the two friendly nations over the last five years qualifies for a cursory review by parties and stakeholders in the Nigeria Bangladesh relations as undertaken by the African Center for Asia Plus Bangladesh Studies (AfCA+BS), 2022 which generally summarized that “continous high level
engagement by the governments and researchers; mutual respect and reciprocity, articulating goals and weaknesses, and practical business to
business networking are among the ways Nigeria and Bangladesh could
facilitate better and expanded bilateral trade and investments”.
Relationship Between
Bangladesh and Nigeria
Economically Bangladesh and Nigeria have expressed
mutual interest to expand the bilateral trade and investment. Bangladeshi pharmaceuticals, knitwear, cement, jute and jute goods, ceramics, ocean-going
vessels, light engineering, leather and plastic goods have been identified as products with huge potential in the Nigerian market.
Nigeria has urged Bangladeshi businessmen to invest in the agriculture, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment’s, ICT, food-processing, and
education sectors of Nigeria.
Trade between the two countries stood at
US$14 million in 2012. In 2014, Bangladesh Tariff Commission prepared
a feasibility study for the benefits of signing new Free/Preferential trade
agreements with African states and recommended that Nigeria along with
Mali are the most promising countries for signing such agreements.
The result indicate progressive growth in such areas as pharmaceuticals/health, finished clothing, textiles and garments (CTG,),
ceramics, iron mongering, electricals, education, in favour of Bangladesh.
Nigeria needs to take advantage of the
concentric diversification initiative of the current NDP (2021-2025), to scale up
export to Bangladesh in sectors of comparative advantage like ginger,
cocoon, Nigerian rice, leather, cynamom, oil and gas, ICT, Digital economy and other emerging sectors.
Potentials, Prospects and Current Status Pursuing economic contents of diplomacy has been one of the focused areas of the High Commission as there are huge potentials of enhancing
commercial links between the two countries.
While the Nigeria Bangladesh
Business and Technology Forum (NBBTF) accredited as a trade group supports the Bangladesh High Commission’s pursuit of economic content and diplomacy, NBBTF has undertaken a few courtesy engagement with the High Commissioner, HE. Masudur Rahman ndc, who participates and presents the
sectoral and broad benefits of a robust Nigeria Bangladesh bilateral relations
and indeed showcases Bangladesh’s export potentials.
Coming after a visit by the High Commissioner with the NBBTF to the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning in May 2022, a visit and presentation of the NBBTF and the enterprising High Commissioner to the
National Inland Waterways Authority of Nigeria consolidated the acceptance of the Mangaing Director of the Authority to lead his management team on an experience sharing visit in October, 2022 to the Bangladesh Inland Waterways Authority, Light
Engineering and Ship building facility and special attendance at the 4th Marine Expo at the Convention City,
Darka, Bangladesh thus precipitating the first high level Nigerian Trade Mission and engagement with Bangladesh –a decade after the Prime Minister’s visit in 2010. Bangladesh for
the records is also known as the Delta nation boasting of about 900 rivers, 50
of which are of international origin.
NBBTF makes every effort to strengthen and develop mutually beneficial cooperation between Nigeria
and Bangladesh and use different instruments for this aim. We are established to help business-circles to
open new markets and explore existing opportunities.
Our mission is to make
business transactions convenient for
our members and clients in Nigeria and Bangladesh. Currently, we develop export consulting service that support functioning and potential exporters
within the bilateral market entrance.
The export consulting process means
undertaking some stages that include wide range of the research, analytical and transactional activities. We are ready to receive your request on bilateral cooperation in the two countries.
A lot of our services are free of charge with only little membership administrative charges involved. Do not
lose such opportunity. To assure you of our reliability, we can provide you statutory documents and other official
documents of our bilateral trade group, as well as send feedback about our work experience.
We have different platforms for our activities including the Nigeria Rapid trade Bangladesh and the
AfCA+BS to facilitate the attainment of your trade and investment dreams in the two countries.
In order to find a qualified potential partner, NBBTF recommends using our
services, to conduct initial screening and meet with potential partners, agents or representatives. It is possible to initially check your new and old business partners with whom you plan to enter into agreements or have
already established relationships. For
convenient and reliable trade facilitation, NBBTF will launch a number of electronic services. NBBTF can find a reliable partner for you in both countries!
Nigeria is an important country in Africa
which plays a vital role in the African Union and ECOWAS and possesses huge economic and business
potentials; the largest economy of Africa and 6th largest producer of oil in
the world. It is a huge market of over 200 million people and still an importdependent country for most of her
requirements. While it is necessary to stave off opportunities for self
preservation, it is important to nurture the budding bilateral trade efforts by
ensuring mutual respect for our citizens through appropriate diplomatic
channels in order to build mutual confidence in the peoples and governments.
The two countries have
work to do in order to exploit the potentials of our relations and prospects of our markets. According to information of the the High Commission information
in 2020 , there was increased demand of business visas (around 300 visas in each
month and most of them are for business purposes until the outbreak of Covid-19)
which indicated the growing interest about Bangladeshi products among the
Nigerian business community which led to the demand and requests for establishment of specialized trade groups aside existing Nigeria Bangladeshi Chamber of Commerce. It has thus
become highly desirable too, for the High Commission to encourage and facilitate
exchange of high-level visits including trade delegation as an important strategy
to inject dynamism in bilateral relations.
In more recent years, Bangladesh has
emerged as a relatively high-growth developing country with a significant
manufacturing base rooted in the garments and textile industries aside the
other equally booming sectors as would
be seen in content of this essay. Investing in Nigeria or forging strong commercial
links can bring huge profits for Bangladeshi investors/exporters and vice
versa. though security remains a major challenge, the seeming mistrust between the two countries also becoming a major
concern likely to affect the expanding but yet feeble trade relations. Bangladesh
must know as a fact that many foreign countries including a good number of
Asian and especially the ASEAN countries have developed mutually beneficial & strong (commercial) relationship with Nigeria and they see Nigeria and
Nigerians as extremely warm, friendly and well-mannered.
Bangladesh is considered one of the global emerging economies among the
developing countries. Over the last few years, Bangladesh economy experienced sustained growth in GDP. At the same
time Bangladesh stands among the severely affected countries due to
climate change. Hence Bangladesh needs
to search for alternative means of sustenance especially in terms of food
production and at the same time to avoid pressure from her huge population. Thus, further exploration of
foreign markets has become a necessity for an emerging economy like Bangladesh.
Nigerians are keen to see that Nigeria Bangladesh relates to draw on areas of
comparative advantage for their mutual benefits, including collaborations for textile/RMG, pharmaceuticals, jute and ceramics factories in Nigeria leveraging the wide
expertise Bangladesh has in these sectors. Bangladesh already exports large pharmaceutical, garments and clothing and other products to Nigeria.
Bangladesh can also benefit by joint ventures particularly in the fields of textiles/RMG as Nigeria has access to
AGOA including duty and quota free access to US market while Bangladesh
can’t avail this facility as a LDC. It is important to note that Nigeria is trying
to reduce its dependence on oil and diversify its sources of revenues which paves the way for foreign investments.
Challenges and Opportunities
Investing in Nigeria or forging strong commercial links between the two nations can bring huge profits for both
investors/exporters and Bangladesh should overcome the mind-sets about
Africa which largely remains
unexplored. There has been a negative perception about Nigeria nay, Africa almost all over the world. Bangladeshis
are no exception to that as they have also recently created some disturbing
confidence crises in the evolving Nigeria Bangladesh bilateral relations
with a balance of trade currently in favour of Bangladesh. With the Covid -19 pandemic and the
accompanying restrictions, physical travel became highly restricted with Nigerian traders compelled to engage
in e-trading to procure goods and other merchandise from Bangladeshi traders
with the attendant challenges. Many
times, the Nigerian traders and buyers complain about huge scams relating to
refusal of the Bangladeshi merchants and traders to meet transaction
obligations in terms of specification for ordered goods, leading to several
losses by the Nigerian traders. While Nigerians have also recently
breached diplomatic priviledges with
high numbers in Bangladeshi
prisons/detention facilities, some of
the Bangladeshi infractions and incidences against Nigerians reportedly
brought to the attention of the High Commission in Abuja has not received
desired responses to the complainants and therefore, huge losses to the
Nigerians. This has invariably triggered a smear in relations leading to a blanket
high restraint by the Bangladeshis in visa issuance to Nigeria and African travellers with only Morroco appearing
as favored country receiving good attention for their visa processes as at
date.
AfCA+BS advocate for mutual and
reciprocal confidence promoting actions by both friendly nations to
incentivise our expanding bilateral engagements through promotion of
high level engagements with pulic and private sector entities. This way, we
must shun that age old medieval days
ideas about total behavior of the Africans and update ourselves about
present day rising Africa. These and many creeping issues have recently
impacted the once expanding bilateral relations fostered by the High Commissioner, Mr. Masudur Rahman
ndc and his predecessors.
Expanding bilateral interaction across
the sectors between Nigeria and Bangladesh will be a mutually beneficial
act and for Bangladesh –a not so outgoing nation, except recently, It is
interesting to note that Africa is the second largest continent with a total
land area of more than 3,025.8 million
hectares, abundance of natural resources, 54 sovereign countries and
180 million hectares of arable land. With Nigeria alone having over 925
nautical miles of shoreline, over 10,000
inland waterways and about 3000 unnavigable waterways, substantially unexplore maritime sector worth over $1trillion amongst the other sectors of pharmaceutical/health, education, culture, Garments, Textiles and Clothing, cocoon, Jute and Jute
products, equipment leasing and tectechnology, light engineering, construction, ceramics, agriculture and
agro-allieds, and so on, presents an ideal
investment environment in Africa.
Bangladesh must explore Africa’s
“mutually benefifial trade and
development opportunities in order to
disrupt current exploitative trade blocs
cognisant that, for many decades, most
of the African States were involved in
unbeneficial trade terms with the so call
developed economies. As members of
several global and development blocs,
Nigeria and Bangladesh could spell a new
horizon in international relations from
mutually beneficial and respected
positions.
The vast majority of Africans had been
struggling hard to get away from their
distressed life. However, African
countries experienced rapid economic
growth in the last decade. Africa could be
the world’s breadbasket and have
inherent resources to feed the rest of the
world if well managed. Regrettably, and
according to the African Development
Report (2012), Africans’ food security is
much below that of the accepted
standard. Many investors have already
identified Africa as a potential business
hub. Vast resources and huge potentials
of Africa have already started attracting
foreign investors.
CONCLUSION
Bangladesh and Nigeria investors could
immediately come forward to explore
these abundant resources through better
investment planning in Africa. African
States import from Asia have expanded in
the past 20 years. As African States begin
to explore areas of cheaper products due
to worsening value of local currency in
international market. The Chinese
government have concentrated
resources in development of the African
for their interest. Bangladesh to
background that strategy in order to
penetrate and potentiall, dislodge
current exploitative market holders in
the Nigerian scenario. It is also
imperative that the High Commission
scale up economic, cultural and political
diplomatic machineries to expouse the
comparative advantages of
progressively expanding Nigeria
Bangladesh relations, such that will
encourage active reciprocal visits
across the government and private
sectors.
The Bangladesh government can also
improve their cooperation with African
States in import- export to be part of
the growing African market as the
Nigeria National Development Plan
(NDP 2021-2025) implements the
Nigeria Concentric Econpomic
Diversificatson initiative and AfTta
open up the Nigerian and African
market. AfCA+BS advocates the
immediate activation of the Nigeria
Bangladesh Binational Commission to
give fillip to a more cordial, respectful
and impactful trade and investment
facilitation between the two countries.
This will also provide the necessary
diplomatic comfort for friendly bilateral
conducts and attainments in identified
areas of comparative advantage, as
well as providing the platform for
checking potential conflict areas early,
before their escalation.
AfCA +BS is a body committed to
providing scholarly research and
understanding on Asia with focus on
Bangladesh and between institutions of
higher learning in Asia and Africa. The
scope of the Center’s engagement
includes but not limited to reciprocal
research information on leadership,
governance, diversity management,
technology and various developmental
programs allied to Bangladesh and
Nigeria and establishing connection for
greater excellent, genuine and
authentic perspectives through
promoting understanding with
researchers in both countries. As the
foremost African Think Tank with focus
on Bangladesh therefore advocates,
orchestrates and enable mobilization
of resources for scholars and students
who focus on our thematic areas and
ideals. The Center has a reciprocal
mandate and will commence full
operation in Q4, 2022.
AfCA+BS
AFRICAN CENTRE FOR
ASIA +BANGLADESH STUDIES
At Abuja
August, 2022.
