By Egena Sunday Ode
President Bola Tinubu will, this week, be heading to Riyadh, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to attend the Saudi-Africa summit and the Arab- African summits.
Tinubu’s attendance of the two major summits is part of efforts to attract more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for the country, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, said at a press conference on Sunday.
According to Ngelale, both events are billed for 10th and 11th November, respectively, noting that President Tinubu in Saudi Arabia would discuss several issues of mutual concern with respect to economic ties between the regions and with respect to the issues of counter terrorism, the environment and agriculture.
Ngelale said other areas for discussion will be in terms of accelerating the level of trade and investment between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the African continent.
He said: “Obviously, President Tinubu, is very keen on ensuring that the Federal Republic of Nigeria within the context of the continent is in a position to maximally leverage on opportunities that will be afforded by the implementation of the African continental Free Trade Agreement, where we will be having a single trade market of over 1 billion Africans.
“The expectation according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa is that by the year 2050, our market here on the continent would have surpassed $29 trillion.”
Ngelale added that at the Arab African summit holding on November 11, President Tinubu in his capacity also as the Chairman of the Authority of Heads of Government of ECOWAS will be taking part in the summit “ensuring that he is at the forefront of advocating for deepening partnership of the two regions that is the League of Arab nations as well as the African Union with respect to integration in terms of infrastructure, facilitation and the establishment of a new high speed train network that would tie Arab nations from the Middle East and Northern Africa, to the rest of the African continent.”
