Nigeria and Kenya recorded a remarkable achievement recently in bilateral cooperation at the landmark official launch of the Kenya-Nigeria Agribusiness forum in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. The impact of Nigeria’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda became evident as the budding Agribusiness Group (NABG), midwifed by the minister of agriculture Akinwumi Adesina, featured prominently at the forum. The president of NABG, Sani Dangote, led 38 businesspeople from Nigeria to the event.
An excited group of Kenyan business community members at the event took advantage of the meeting to commence business-to-business relationships between the two countries in areas of opportunities that could be mutually beneficial to the parties involved.
“We want to build on cooperation,” said one of the Kenyan officials who asked for greater access of Kenya to Nigerian market. James Mwangi, chairman of Kenya-Nigeria Joint Business Council, wondered why tea produced in Kenya has to go to Europe and be processed and labeled before making its way to the Nigerian market. “Our tea goes to Europe and then to Nigeria. Nigeria can consume the total production of tea from Kenya. You don’t have to look for middlemen from Europe to make that trade work,” he observed, suggesting that such a product could be brought to Nigeria directly from Kenya. According to Mwangi, Nigeria’s cassava flour could be produced and called an African name. This could be sold to Kenyan consumers.
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