Yemisi Izuora/Ijeoma Agudosi
Trade size between Nigeria and Australia now stands at about $2 billion, according to the Australian high commissioner, Jonathan Richardson.
Richardson said that Australia currently imports about $2 billion worth of oil from Nigeria adding that though Nigeria’s export to Australia had reduced recently, Australia’s export to Nigeria had increased extensively.
“The total volume of trade between Australia and Nigeria now is around 2 billion dollars; I think the level of petroleum export from Nigeria has dropped a bit.
“Our exports to Nigeria are very high; we want to make Australia exports to Nigeria higher because we see a lot of potentials here,” he said.
According to him, “We have been exporting such things like wheat and some equipment and so forth. We hope there would be more commercial involvement in those areas’.
Richardson said Australian exports had grown “more modestly but slowly” over the last few years adding that his country had a number of companies that were active in the mining and the infrastructure sectors.
He acknowledged Nigeria’s economy as the largest in Africa following the rebasing of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2014, saying it is an important milestone.
According to him, the bilateral relationship between Nigeria and Australia has grown stronger over the last few years; it has taken a number of different dimensions.