Nigerian hails FG over new Consulate in China’s Guangzhou

President Goodluck Jonathan has been commended for opening Nigerian Consulate in China’s com­mercial city, Guangzhou.

Making the the commen­dation, the President of Good Governance Initiative (GGI and CEO, Blue Diamond Group China, Mr Festus Mbi­siogu said the opening of the Consulate brought to fulfill­ment the desire of many Ni­gerians resident in the city. According to him, 80 percent of Africans resident in the city are Nigerians.

He recounted the difficul­ties Nigerians faced to get consular service. According to Mbisiogu, Nigerians had to travel about 21 hours by train or three hours by flight from Guangzhou to China’s capital, Beijing to go to the Nigerian embassy to obtain business registration and other consular services.

“Now, all that is history with the establishment of the consulate as we make progress towards achieving the much-touted win-win co-operation between Nigeria and China,” he said. He said that beside diplomatic activities, Nigeri­ans resident in China are the backbone of the nation’s for­eign policy with China.

Majority of business trans­actions between Nigerians and Chinese take place in Guang­zhou where the growing pres­ence of Nigerians.

Mbisiogu said before the Consulate was opened, Nige­rians were almost losing touch with the gains of the growing Sino-Nigeria relations, noting that despite the high volume of business transactions between China and Africa (Nigerian businessmen contribute over 70%), Nigerians go through untold hardship to access vital information and services from the Consulate office.

“It was that bad,” He said relief came last August when President Jonathan visited Beijing and the Nigerian busi­ness community appealed to him to establish a consulate in the city of Guangzhou.

Mbisiogu noted that the Nigerian businessmen com­munity and other residents in China have now felt the warm impact of the good governance of President Jonathan as their prayers were finally answered following the opening of the Consulate.

Mbisiogu urged the Con­sular-General to attract more foreign investments to Nigeria because the Chinese business community sees Nigeria as a rich African country blessed with very industrious young people especially, who have revolutionized the art of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). He also appealed that the Federal Government to fund the Consulate.