Olusegun Awolowo, the Executive Director, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), says the Netherlands buys 47 per cent of Nigeria’s Cocoa produce.
Awolowo made this known while fielding questions from State House correspondents after a trade agreement between the Netherlands and Nigeria on Tuesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The signing of the agreement was supervised by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Awolowo said that Nigeria needed to tap from the Netherlands’ know-how in agro-business and agro-processing.
“The Netherlands is our number one trading partner in Europe; they buy 47 per cent of our cocoa; that is just 2018 figures; it is almost $150 million in raw materials. So, we are looking now at agro-processing; value addition; we know the untapped potential of our trade to the Netherlands on cocoa oil, cocoa paste; so we need to get them to buy that from us.
“We also know that they import a lot of aluminum; that is also where we can export and supply them.
“So we really want to take advantage of their knowledge in agro-processing because they have one of the best universities in the world for training on this.
“The idea is to develop more companies that will export to Europe; we must look forward to a new development with innovation on technology and that agreement helps us to seal that,’’ he said.