$5bn Indian line of credit open to Nigeria -Envoy

The Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Abhay Thakur, has said that Nigeria can explore $5 billion line of credit with low interest rate from India.

Thakur, who disclosed this when he visited the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, in Abuja on Monday, said the Prime Minister of India made available to Africa $10billion credit line during India – Africa Forum Summit out of which only fifty per cent had been utilised.

According to him, Nigeria had the opportunity to explore the credit line which had an interest rate of only 1.75 per cent.

“This is a good facility which to my knowledge half of it has just been utilised and for Nigeria, we can enhance our areas of collaboration,” the envoy said.

Speaking further, Thakur said India was making moves to upgrade the bilateral agreement existing between both countries in the areas of human capacity development, e-government, industrialisation and Information and Communications Technology.

Read also: Nigeria to get $100m for broadband connectivity

In his response, Shittu admitted that India has remained one of the best countries Nigeria had enjoyed a relationship with in terms of partnership.

Shittu said: “In the area of bilateral agreement, we can raise a team to work on crucial areas and look at the details and appraise what we can do on low hanging fruit that would be beneficial to both countries.

“A lot of Indian companies had often indicated interest to invest in Nigeria by way of establishing industries but rarely translate such into action, hence, the need to encourage them to translate such interest into reality.”

The minister however called on the High Commissioner to encourage India investors to establish a 5G village in Nigeria and also partner with stakeholders in building the proposed ICT Park in Abuja.

According to the minister, the park is expected to be located in a free trade zone that would add beauty and elegance to the country as well as boost revenue base of the investors.

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