Nigeria, Kazakhstan to Sign MOU in Agriculture, Trade, IT Collaboration

By: Michael Mike

Nigeria and Kazakhstan are preparing to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to cement bilateral relations aimed at building cooperation in agriculture, trade and information technologies.

The plan is presently been consummated at a business conference in Abuja on Sunday, facilitated by the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, which brought into the country 30-member Kazakhstan’s
delegation from its public and private sectors to explore several areas of cooperation.

Speaking at the conference, the minister of the Federal Ministry of Communications, innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, said the ministry had already developed a strategic blueprint with six pillars, adding that each of these pillars is a potential area of collaboration and partnership with the Kazakhstan team.

The Minister who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Faruk Yabo, said: “In particular, pillar number one speaks about knowledge, capacity building and talents. I’m aware that Kazakhstan is quite advanced in terms of its knowledge base in ICT. So this is a big area that we can partner.

“We already have the world’s largest capacity-building initiative that we are running, which is the three million technical talents by 2027. This is intended to train Nigerians in technical talent so that at least 1.5 million of them will be able to work in Europe and the remaining ones could be here.”

He also said the two countries were looking to cooperate in artificial intelligence, adding that Nigeria had just finished drafting its artificial intelligence strategy.

He also called for cooperation in the development of digital infrastructure.

On his part, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, who highlighted the giant strides made so far in the agriculture sector by the current administration, said Nigeria could collaborate with Kazakhstan in many areas of the sector.

Kyari said: “We’re meeting with them on Tuesday at 2 o’clock, and we will talk more and elaborately on some of the opportunities that exist between Nigeria and Kazakhstan in terms of the agricultural space.

“We are not asking only for them to come and invest. We are also asking for us to partner with them. What is it that they need? We have products that we have in abundance here.”

The Kazakhstan head of delegation, Alibek Kuantyrov, on his part, said this is the first official delegation from Kazakhstan to Nigeria, adding that the huge population of youths in the two countries provided an opportunity for cooperation.

“Our main trajectory is economic development, and we are the largest economy in Central Asia. So the same as Nigeria, Nigeria is a leader in the African continent.

“We see Nigeria as a very important partner and also the channel to go through the whole continent, and I think we can work together in terms of the transit of goods, trade and also making pure mutual investment in the field of minerals.

“We’re also an ICT and AI nation and also a FinTech nation, the sectors that are being developed in Nigeria and now we have managed and come to a conclusion that we can also open some FinTech and banking companies in the Nigerian markets.

“We can also exchange our ICT products and make an exchange of students because we have a target in our country to prepare at least 1 million IT specialists.”

The Ooni of Ife, who conveyed the meeting, said President Bola Tinubu should be credited for being proactive and making the business conference a reality, adding that it was a follow-up from the meeting between the presidents of the two countries in Abu Dhabi in January.

“They are very bullish. They are serious. They mean business. They’re here with their largest contingent, and they want to see how to explore so many things, and it will really help Nigerian youth in terms of employment. Look at another beautiful thing that came up today as a country. They’re changing their visa policy for them to accommodate Nigerians that are so talented in the area of tech, artificial intelligence, in area of writing codes.”

Nigeria, Kazakhstan to Sign MOU in Agriculture, Trade, IT Collaboration