EUROPEAN Union (EU) officials have granted Nigeria a sum of €150m to develop the country's power sector as part of a major redevelopment plan that includes the training of young engineers to man the sector.
Poor power supply is one of Nigeria's biggest problems at the moment as the country is crumbling under the weight of grossly limited capacity. This leads to incessant power cuts and has limited industrial output, with virtually everyone owning a private generator, polluting the environment.
Yesterday, Michel Arrion, the head of EU delegation to Nigeria, said the grant would be used mainly for training young engineers and funding some technical aspects of the sector. Speaking at the fifth EU-Nigeria Business Forum (EUNBF) pre-event briefing in Lagos, he said the EU is collaborating with the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria to inject young engineers into the sector.
According to Mr Arrion the energy sector as an important aspect of the economy, pointing out that nothing would work well if the sector was not adequately funded. He said the business forum would focus on creating opportunities for EU and Nigerian small and medium enterprises to create their businesses through the Enterprise Europe Network.
Mr Arrion said: “The EU is already financing a transmission project in Katsina State and we have spent over €5m, about N1.6bn, on it. We want to identify opportunities in the textile value chain and proffer options for accessing long term finance for the critical power sector in Nigeria.
“The fifth EUNBF has been designed to discuss business opportunities and address bottlenecks to investments, particularly in the power sector. We will focus on diversification of the economy through SMEs.”
Filippo Amato, the counsellor, head of trade and economics section of the EU, said the community granted over €750m to Nigeria between 2008 and 2013. He added that €512m had been spent from 2015 till date.
In 2014 alone, Nigeria’s total trade with the EU stood at €39bn, with the EU accounting for 31% of Nigeria’s total trade. Mr Amato said the investment stock in Nigeria grew from €23.8bn in 2013 to €25.3bn in 2014.
He said, however, with the fall in oil prices, EU-Nigeria trade declined by 26.7% to €29bn in 2015. To reverse this trend, he said the fifth EUNBF aims to strengthen the EU-Nigeria business relations through identification of opportunities in the global textile value chain, expose Nigerian SMEs to opportunities in the EU market and explore the financing options available for funding of the power sector and diversifying the energy mix in the country.
“Nigerian exports to EU declined by 35%, while imports declined by 7% over the period. Unfortunately, about 97% of exports to the EU are oil and gas," Mr Amato added.
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