By Olanrewaju Adesanya
The Chinese government has indicated poise to bolster Nigeria’s economic development and growth.
Speaking at the Chinese 70th anniversary celebration, the China Consul General in Nigeria Chu Maoming gave the assurance, citing the resolve of the government of the Peoples Republic China to bolster bilateral relationship with Nigeria.
According to Maoming, today we are here to celebrate the Chinese traditional mid-autumn festival and the founding 70th of the People’s Republic of China, the bilateral between China and Nigeria has brought about economic development.
He also said that in an attempt to improve the cultural affinities between the two countries, a Kongfu show performance was staged reflecting China’s way of life.
“We have supported each other in economic, political and social aspects and for about five years, Chinese troupe have been going round Nigerian schools to perform in other for cultural exchange which stand to strengthen ties.
“We hope we could promo the culture exchange between China and Nigeria to a new high”. Maoming said.
The Chairman of Chinese Community in Nigeria, Mr. Dong Rui’e said China and Nigeria had ties which has translated into mutual economic success as the two countries have a lot to do in future so they need to support one another.
He said that, “the Chinese community is celebrating China’s 70 years of existence and 59 years of Nigeria’s independence, while, we also support children’s education through scholarship in six states and five students to get through university from each state will get N50,000 as grant every year.
“We also use that as an avenue through which we encourage cultural exchange between Nigeria and China via the schools, we also support 14 students in those schools with scholarship, every September 19, for the past five years we have supported 500 children with N20,000 each, 10 winners went home with N100,000 each, another batch of 10 went home with 50,000 the other 10 got N30,000.
Commenting on the bilateral relationship between Nigeria and China with regards to ease of doing business he said, “we are like one family, we are part of Nigeria we want the government to improve on our economy, security to make this country good for us to invest.
“ Chinese nationals here spent a lot to come to Nigeria, I have many Nigerians working in my factory, the most of the workers in CCECC are Nigerians, we want more businesses because China also have a very huge population,we have some Chinese nationals here with work and stay visa.”
The Nigerian Minister for Trade and Investment, Otunba Niyi Adebayo in
a chat with newsmen stated the poise of Nigerian government to support genuine investment.
“We are giving them the assurances that this government is out to support genuine businessmen , who want to invest in Nigeria.
“We will continue to maintain good bilateral relationship with both countries.”