Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama

The Tunisia Foreign Affairs Ministry Minister, Mr Khemaies Jhinaoui has stressed the need to increase the 50 million dollars volume of trade between his country and Nigeria

Jhinaoui stated at a joint press briefing with his Nigerian counterpart Geoffrey Onyeama, after the Nigeria-Tunisia Joint Ministerial Commission in Abuja.

The Minister, who decried the current volume of trade between the two countries, said that measures were needed to be put in place to enhance their economic and trade relations, according to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN.

He said that the two countries had a long term relations but the trade volume did not reflect the level of the relations.

The Minister said the two countries should explore the available potentials to make sporadic increase in the trade and economic relation between them.

“”Fifty million dollars trade volume is below the expectation of both countries and there is need to increase it,” he said.

He stressed on the need to encourage and support the full functioning of the bilateral Chambers of Commerce and mutual participation in trade fairs and exhibitions between the two countries.

Onyeama, who also corroborated his Tunisian counterpart claims, said that government had begun to focus on the removal of the barriers for easy trade

“”We have taken note of the challenges, it is important for our two countries to scale up the level of trade which is extremely low. ”

He said that the two countries had a lot of competitive advantages in various sectors which included health, power and tourism among others.

He, therefore, urged them to explore those areas to strengthen the trade and economic ties between them