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Nigeria is in talks to secure trade agreements with several Global South countries and Gulf states as it seeks to spur investment into critical infrastructure needed to become a trillion-dollar economy by 2030, the country’s trade minister told Semafor.
A bilateral trade deal agreed this week with the United Arab Emirates will see the mutual elimination of tariffs on thousands of goods. It is one of many future partnerships that Nigeria hopes will increase investment in its energy, power, road, and rail projects, said Trade Minister Jumoke Oduwole in an interview.
“We have been pursuing some other agreements that are at different stages,” said Oduwole. “We are looking at countries whose investors want to invest in big infrastructure projects.” China, Brazil, India, the Gulf region, and Latin America have been the main countries or regions where Nigeria has been cultivating relationships in recent years that could yield potential investments. Oduwole added that these recent discussions marked “a clear evolution” in Nigeria’s approach to trade.
Companies from the UAE backed projects worth about $110 billion in Africa between 2019 and 2023, and in November the Emirates announced an initiative to invest $1 billion in African AI infrastructure. Nigeria became only the second African country after Mauritius with which the UAE has agreed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, the Emirates’ signature bilateral trade agreement first entered into with India in 2022.
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After two consecutive years of annual trade and investment deficits exceeding $3 billion, Nigeria recorded a $6.8 billion surplus in 2024. It was the second year of President Bola Tinubu’s aggressive push to revamp the economy, mainly through cuts to costly petrol subsidies and overhauling the foreign exchange system.
Inflation has stabilized in the period since, while foreign companies operating in the country have been able to repatriate dollar earnings. Multinationals like Emirates Airlines — one of two flag carriers owned by the UAE — have reopened flight routes to Lagos, and plan to add another to Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja.
About half of Nigeria’s 31 bilateral investment agreements are currently in force, according to a US government tally. The new trade relationships that Nigeria aims to secure will not all follow the UAE template, where tariff removal is a major feature, Oduwole said. But in each case, access to Nigeria’s large market of 200 million people and its membership of the African Continental Free Trade Area — the world’s largest free trade area — make for a compelling pitch to potential partners, she said.
Alexander’s view
Nigeria’s pursuit of new bilateral trade relationships underscores a post-Trump realignment in global trade and alliances between nations. It has become more important than ever for countries to clarify domains of competitiveness and seek clear-eyed deals that give robust economic and security advantages in a multipolar world.
For Nigeria, that means trade agreements follow the government’s overarching foreign policy doctrine of “strategic autonomy” that will be “pragmatic” and non-ideological, as defined by the country’s foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar. An apparent aspect of this pragmatism is to seek trade partnerships in the Global South, especially member countries of the BRICS economic bloc.
Trade between Nigeria and China, Africa’s dominant trading partner for more than a decade, rose 30% in the first eight months of last year to $22 billion, according to a Chinese government official. But Nigeria is also increasingly trying to diversify its partners as expanding trade pacts with Colombia and other countries in Latin America show.
Step Back
Nigeria was one of many countries hit by the US government’s push to reshape global trade through the imposition of tariffs. It received a 14% duty on Nigerian exports as part of last year’s ‘Liberation Day’ broadcast by US President Donald Trump.
But while Nigerian officials were concerned about the tariff rollout’s effect on oil prices — a key driver of the country’s economic health since oil exports account for 90% of its foreign exchange earnings — the government was deliberate about not reacting or retaliating, Oduwole said. A working group from the Tinubu and Trump administrations was formed last June to flesh out the terms of a Commercial Investment Partnership signed under former US President Joe Biden’s administration in 2024 to expand bilateral investment ties.
Notable
- Kenyan exports are set to secure duty-free access to China after both parties reached a preliminary agreement on a bilateral trade pact, the trade ministry in Nairobi said.