21st June, 2012
President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil has accepted an invitation from President Goodluck Jonathan to visit Nigeria before the end of the year in furtherance of efforts to boost economic and trade relations between both countries.
President Jonathan extended the invitation at a bilateral meeting with the Brazilian President on Wednesday during the ongoing United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, noting that greater economic and developmental cooperation would be in the mutual interest of Nigeria and Brazil.
The President said that Nigeria will welcome increased Brazilian support and cooperation for the development of mechanised agriculture, power generation and other sectors in which Brazilians are globally acknowledged experts.
He also called for the revitalisation of the Africa-South American Cooperation Forum which was jointly initiated by Nigeria’s former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and the former President of Brazil, Mr. Lula Da Silva as a platform for the promotion of economic and political cooperation between the two countries and continents.
Accepting President Jonathan’s invitation to visit Nigeria, President Rousseff said that she will come with Brazilian investors and businessmen with expertise in many fields to give them an opportunity to meet their Nigerian counterparts with a view to establishing profitable joint ventures.
She assured President Jonathan that Brazil, currently the world’s sixth largest economy, would be glad to deploy the skills and expertise which its people have acquired in many fields, including engineering, construction, technology, public infrastructure, hydro-power generation and large scale mechanised agriculture for economic growth and development in Nigeria.
Her state visit to Nigeria is tentatively scheduled for November.