Guest Columnist By Charles Onunaiju
Nigeria’s participation at the 3rd Belt and Road Forum for international cooperation held in China’s capital, Beijing between the 17th and18th of October marked the country’s most high profile engagement with the China initiated international frame work for cooperation since signing on to the initiative in 2018.
The 3rd edition of the Forum in Beijing marked also the 10th anniversary, since it was founded. The “Silk Road Economic Belt” and “21st Century Maritime Silk Road”, more famously known as the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI) was announced in 2013 to facilitate infrastructure connectivity, enhance unimpeded trade, deepen financial integration, promote policy coordination and give full effect to people-to-people contacts across the world. It took as its inspiration, the more than 2000 years ancient Silk Road through which not only trade and commerce grew but also cultural intellectual exchanges flourished in both land and sea routes that connected China with central Asia, Europe and Africa.
In today’s world, the Belt and Road initiative is the concrete expression of the trend of globalization but underwriting it with concrete and tangible network of connectivity and given practical meaning to open and inclusive world system or order. Nigeria’s participation at the 3rd edition of the Belt and Road for international cooperation with her high-level delegation, led by the vice-president, Mr. Kashim Shettima and comprised of top and strategic government ministries – Foreign Affairs, Power, Works, Trade, investment and Industry, Transportation, Budget and National Planning, the country’s highest representation to the Forum yet, showed an increasing understanding of the process and how it could be aligned to Nigeria’s major priorities of economic recovery and sustainable growth.
Along with the ministerial delegation were also key government departments including the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), Nigeria Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, and the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI).
The Nigeria government delegation apart from participating at the main session of the Belt and Road Forum received Beijing’s highest level attention and held bilateral meetings with both the Chinese president and vice-president in spite of a punishing schedule of the Chinese leader who has to meet and welcome more than two dozen heads of state and government from across the world that thronged the Chinese capital.
More than one hundred countries and international organizations were in Beijing for the summit and the tireless UN secretary general, Mr. Anthonio Guterrens was in personal attendance to underscore the significance of the Belt and Road mechanism in the construction of a functional global order that is inclusive. China has since 2005, declared Nigeria as a strategic partner and Nigeria’s attention at the highest level of China’s political authority with a sideline bilateral meeting gave concrete expression to a Beijing deliberate cultivation of Abuja as an important and strategic partner.
Beijing is usually a cynosure of world attention, as China is the largest trading partner of almost 150 countries and also invest an average of 340 million US dollars around the world on daily basis.
That president Tinubu empaneled a high-powered delegation with full compliment of strategic government ministries and departments underscored his understanding of the imperative to engage the China initiated Belt and Road mechanism for it’s potential practical contribution to the requirements of the country’s economic recovery, national security and political stability.
As governor of Nigeria’s mega city, Lagos state, in the early 2000’s, President Tinubu engaged with a leading Chinese company, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) which resulted in the establishment of the Lekki Free Trade Zone. The Zone has since expanded and now have more than 150 companies attracting both domestic and foreign investors which is a joint venture between the Lagos state government and China-Africa Lekki Investment Limited (CALIL).
The zone is Nigeria’s biggest and most successful industrial hub and currently host such strategic infrastructure project, Lekki Deep Sea Port built in record three years under the Belt and Road Cooperation between Nigeria and China and which cultivated multinational investment of leading French and Singaporean companies. President Tinubu experience of practical and tangible outcomes in Nigeria-China cooperation would have played important role in the decision for Nigeria’s high-level participation at the 3rd Belt and Road Forum in Beijing.
At the side line of the bilateral meeting with the Nigeria’s delegation, the Chinese leader, XI Jinping assured that “China is ready to continue working with Nigeria to push for more tangible outcomes of China-Nigeria and China-Africa Belt and Road Cooperation and help Nigeria and Africa realize industrialization and agricultural modernizations” and added that “ China supports Nigeria in pursuing a path to modernization suited to its national conditions and stands ready to enhance personnel exchanges at all levels with Nigeria to advance high-quality cooperation”.
Vice president Kashim Shettima responded with an appreciation that “China has always treated Nigeria and other African countries with respect and as equals; has never bossed them around and has done its best to support Africa in seeking independence and development.” He further hinted that “Nigeria is ready to further deepen Belt and Road Cooperation with China and lift Nigeria-China relations to a new level”.
President Xi Jinping has earlier told the delegations from over 150 countries at the massive China National Convention Centre that “Belt and Road Cooperation has extended from Eurasian continent to Africa and Latin America,” and has progressed from “sketching the outline” to filling in the details”, and that blueprints have been turned into real projects and noted that “a large number of signature projects and “small yet smart” people-centered programs have been launched”.
The Chinese leader who proposed an 8 major steps to deepen the Belt and Road International Cooperation opined that “China has learned that humankind is a community with a shared future and China can only do well when the world is doing well. And when China does well, the world will even get better.”
It should not be forgotten that in recent years, a plethora of International infrastructure programs, more remarkable for their sheer numbers than their efficacies have emerged involving the U. S, Japan, India, Australia and European countries in various combinations, most of them marriages of convenience or mere China-countering alliances. These range from from Asia-Africa Growth Corridor and Trilateral partnership(The U. S, Japan and Australia) to the Blue Dot Network and Buld Back Better World Initiatives. However, so far, as Japan Times, put it in it’s recent editorial, “it, s been more fancy talk than finance”. Meanwhile, the Asia Investment and Infrastructure Bank (AIIB), and Chinese institutions such as the Silk Road Fund, China Development Bank, the EXIM Bank of China have invested up to 1 trillion U. S dollars in Belt and Road related projects across the world.
Nigeria’s participation at the Forum witnessed an avalanche of several MoU’s outlining cooperation in several key areas of the Nigeria’s economy.Trade and economic relations between Nigeria and China received a boost following the signing of a Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) between the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) and three Chinese firms for new projects valued at $2 billion.
The Nigerian government also received letters of intent for new projects and investments worth $4 billion from more Chinese companies.“
The three MOUs to partner with NASENI include the construction of a new energy automobile facility for the production of new energy electric vehicles by Shanghai Launch Automotive Technical Co Ltd; construction of turnkey delivery of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) assembly line projects by China Great Wall Industry Corporation; and the transfer of technology on lithium batteries, electric vehicles and allied technologies by Newway Power Technology Company Ltd.
The Chinese firms that presented Letters of Intent to the Vice President to pull together $ 4 billion in investments are TBEA (solar products); DongFeng Vehicles Co. (vehicle design and production), and HiLong Energy (CNG, LNG, methanol).Others are Space Star Technology (Drone technology transfer); ENRIC (clean energy utilization technology); Hidier Group (development of new industrial park), China State Construction Company (building technology and materials); CIMC (natural gas infrastructure delivery); Value Platform International Services Ltd (vocational training) and Acadia Technologies (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd. (smart grids and microgrids).Shettima also met with several communications, tech, railway, power and construction giants based in China. They include the China National Electric Engineering Co. Ltd, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), China Communications Construction Co. Ltd (CCCC), HUAWEI Technologies, Senteng International Company Nigeria Limited, China National Electric Engineering Co. Ltd and Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co. Ltd.
All these are significant engagement that have potentials to translate into tangible aggregates and therefore should be diligently followed-up. Nigeria has poor record of following up on critical outcomes beyond the glitz and glamour of summit but an important framework as the Belt and Road Initiative with proven record of concrete and practical outcomes would deserve diligent monitoring and evaluation of progress made, in driving Nigeria-China cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Cooperation.
Mr. Onunaiju, is director Centre for China Studies Abuja, participated at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing.
