TheCable

The volume of trade between Nigeria and Spain increased to €7.8 billion in 2013 from €7 billion in 2012, Spanish ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Alfonso Barnuevo, said on Thursday.

Speaking in Abuja at a media briefing on the upcoming ninth Spanish Cultural week, Barnuevo said Spain is one of Nigeria’s best clients, as 90 per cent of the gas and 30 per cent of the oil consumed in Spain come from Nigeria.

“Increasingly, there are more Spanish companies interested in Nigeria in the fields of engineering, construction, oil sector and food,” he said.

“I am sure the presence of these companies would be consolidated in the years to come.”

Barnuevo said Spain, the world’s 13th largest economy and EU’s fifth biggest economy in terms of GDP, has been the third largest EU trading partner to Nigeria in the past three years.

Describing the economic change in Spain in the last 30 years as enormous, he recalled that in the 1980s, Spain was a donor-dependent country, but today it is the sixth largest donor to the UN system.