The Malaysia High Commissioner-designate to Nigeria, Gloria Tiwet, has said trade volume between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Nigeria in 2017 stood at $7.7 billion.
Tiwet disclosed this when she led Embassies’ Heads of Missions and ASEAN member-states’ High Commissioners on a visit to the Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama, in Abuja.
She said the envoys were in the ministry to intimate the minister on ASEAN Day and Film Festival scheduled to hold in Abuja, soon.
ASEAN comprises 10 countries, with only five represented in Nigeria. They are Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.
Tiwet said: “In 2017, the trade volume between ASEAN and Nigeria amounted to $7.7 billion. That is very promising and portrayed good relations between our countries and Nigeria.
“Trade is one area that we looked into to strengthen our bilateral relations, and respectively, we represent our countries here as ambassadors and high commissioners to strengthen our bilateral relations as much as we can.”
The envoy explained that the film festival was to strengthen relations between Nigeria and ASEAN and the film is targeted at promoting Nigeria and strengthening the bilateral relations in the area of culture.
In his remarks, Indonesian Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Harry Purwanto, said ASEAN Day objective was to make ASEAN more feasible in Nigeria.