Nigeria has emerged as South Africa 's biggest trading partner in West Africa, and its third in Africa after Mozambique and Zimbabwe, Nigeria's official News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) has reported here.
The news agency on Wednesday quoted Dianne Games, chief executive officer of the South Africa-Nigeria Chambers and Commerce (SA-NCC) in an interview in Johannesburg, South Africa.
"South Africa's export to Nigeria have grown from 291 million rand (348,000 U.S. dollars) in 1998 to 4 billion rand (143 million dollars) in 2006. Import, mostly oil, has nearly doubled in a year from 4.2 billion rand (143.3 million dollars) in 2005 to 9.3 billion rand (286 million U.S. dollars) in 2006," Games said.
Despite the growing trade ties, Nigeria has proved to be a difficult business destination for South Africans for a range of reasons, she said.
According to Games, vastly different cultures, unpredictable business environment, high costs of doing business, logistics and perception problems are some of the difficulties being encountered in Nigeria.
Games said, however, that South Africa would soon challenge Nigeria's traditional trading partners such as the United States, Britain and other European partners in terms of overall trade.
"South Africa is offering skills, goods and services on a par with Western countries but are able to undercut their prices," she said.
She further explained that the interest of South African companies, both small and large, had grown rapidly in the past two years.
"The trend of funding local partners has also developed as trust has grown between companies in both countries," Games said.
She attributed the increased volume of trade to the strong political ties between the two countries.
"South Africa-Nigeria Bi-national commission has met on six occasions and more than 15 agreements to facilitate trade and investment have been signed although it has not been active in the past few years," she added.
Yunus Suleman, chairman of a South Africa-based accounting firm, expressed the optimism that Nigeria could become South Africa's largest trading partner in the continent if the significant increase in trade over the last few years could be sustained.
"South African companies are less skeptical now than ever before, " Suleman said.
It is learnt that the establishment of the SA-NCC in 1999 had played a facilitating role, including identifying business opportunities, verification of business associates, investment advice and assistance in organizing business trips to Nigeria. The group currently has more than 250 members.
Source: Xinhua
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