By Rasheeda Yahaya
The Nigerian government has promised a good bilateral relationship to collaborate with the Singaporean government to grow it’s GDPA.
This was revealed by the permanent secretary of the ministry of foreign affairs Amb. Dunoma Umar Ahmed today 21st November, while receiving the Delegation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, noting that government would continue to create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive in the country.
Ahmed said, “We commend contributions by Singapore to our GDP and job creation, as President Bola Tinubu’s administration is diversifying the economy into non-oil areas.
“These include mining, agriculture, renewable energy and tourism; we invite Singaporean companies interested in such areas to come and invest, as Nigeria is now one of the most attractive investment destinations globally.”
Leader of the Delegation from Singapore, Dr Maliki Osman, a minister in the Prime Minister’s Office of Singapore, while fielding quests from journalists disclosed that there are so many areas to explore other areas in Nigeria for the economic growth of Nigeria.
Osman, also Second Minister of Education and Foreign Affairs of Singapore, said the delegation was in Nigeria to establish new frontiers for deepening bilateral relations between both countries in area of youth development.
Osman said. “We agree that there are many new areas of opportunities for young people and Nigeria, country with young population within middle age of 17-years shows great potential for manpower development.
“Singapore has gone through very fast paced development and we have seen how important it is for human development, as key driving force that is naturally what Singapore was like.
“We are a country with little natural resources and human resource is the only resources we have, our experience in human capacity development is something we can share with our Nigerian counterparts.
“I will be meeting the Minister of Education to further discuss on our potential collaboration.
“There is a proposal on technical vocational training for Nigerian young people and we are looking at those proposals, to see how we can advance relationship through support to our Nigerian counterparts.”
He further promised to prioritise the capacity building of government officials, saying Singapore had cooperation programme in such regard.
“This includes a recently announced special package for our friends in the African continent under the Singapore African Partnership.
“This provides opportunities for us to customise training programmes in areas that our friends seem necessary.
“Counterparts from different ministries in Nigeria can tell us what aspects they can learn from us, as long as we can share our experiences.
“We will be happy to customise those training programmes. We also provide tailor made programmes and priority allocation to officials from Nigeria, and other African countries based on programmes that exist.
“We also provide post-graduate scholarships for senior officials to come to Singapore to study at a post-graduate level; we are happy to journey with Nigeria on capacity building,” he added.
He mentioned that the country would create more economic engagements to promote growth in ICT, AI and renewable energy, as new frontiers for deepening Singapore’s bilateral relations with Nigeria.
He reiterated that both countries would work closely together amidst economic challenges that existed in different parts of the world.