By Ben Agande

Abuja — Vice President Namadi Sambo has decried the imbalance in trade relations between Nigeria and Sweden and called for improvement

He spoke yesterday when he received a delegation of Swedish officials, led by the Minister of International Development Corporation, Gunilla Carlsson, in Abuja.

Other members of the delegation include the Minister of Finance, Anders Borg, Director General for African Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and an Ambassador in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

According to the Vice President, Nigeria is ready for improved cooperation with Sweden.

He noted that though the trade volume between Nigeria and Sweden had moved from $26 million years ago to about $800 million,  it was still far below expectation.

”I will advise that we look at the MoU that was signed sometimes in 2011 and the need to look at improving our bilateral relations and agreements such that it will allow faster growth of our economic development between the two countries.

“Probably with proper understanding and agreements on how our trade cooperations can be enhanced, it will improve our trade relations and cooperation will be enhanced,” the Vice President said.

He said Nigeria and Sweden had to explore faster avenues for the implementation of ideas and decisions reached between both countries because part of the administration’s developmental economic plans was to address specific areas the nation had deficit.

He called on Swedish companies to take advantage of the government’s programme in the power sector  to invest in power generation and transmission,

He said:  “As I speak we have over 200 existing dams that we can develop small and medium hydro power scheme and also the irrigation schemes.

“We will develop economic corridors that would have small and medium agricultural industries, and Sweden and other Scandinavian countries have immense experience in this direction.

”There are several other opportunities like the transport sector, we understand Sweden also has immense experience in ports management and sea transportation.

”One area in addition to power to revamp our transport sector. In the rail system, we are rehabilitating almost 4000 kilometres of our exiting narrow gauge gateway; we are constructing new standard gauge fast train lines in the country and we are designing many more.

“So there is opportunity for economic cooperation in that both in infrastructure and the railway constructions.

”In the ports development, we are planning the development of deep sea ports and the improvement of our existing ports because our present ports were built several decades ago and the capacity has already been exceeded and the need to build and improve on existing ones is obvious.