By Olisemeka Obeche
Spanish Government has declared its preparedness to be a key player in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector as well as agriculture. Spanish Ambassador to Nigeria, Alfonso Sebastian de Erice made the disclosure during an official visit to the Speaker of Federal House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, at the National Assembly complex, Abuja on Tuesday.
de Erice who commended existing bilateral relations between Spain and Nigeria disclosed that his country bought oil and gas worth 6.5 billion Euros from Nigeria in 2014. He declared the readiness of Spanish government to play active role in the petroleum sector, especially in boosting local refining of petrol. “For us, the oil business is important because we need it but we want to diversity and I know that Nigerian authorities also want to diversify,” he said.
“We are very happy with the exchanges that we have, and we need the oil but we want to diversify because we think it is very important that our economic relations should not be only in gas and petrol. We want to cooperate with you in agriculture; we have very good agricultural industry. We have comparative advantage in tourism, manufacturing. We have several treaties that allow us to work here. It is a domain that we will have to explore,” he said.
The envoy also pledged his country’s support to Nigeria towards tackling terrorism in the region, stressing that Spain and Nigeria had signed several Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) on training on anti-terrorism.
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