The volumes of trade between Nigeria and China as well as Nigeria and the Netherlands have been put at $7 billion and $4 billion, respectively.

This disclosure was made on Monday during President Goodluck Jonathan’s separate audiences with Xu Jiango, the outgoing Chinese ambassador to Nigeria as well as his Netherlands counterpart, Van der Wiel, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Wiel had told President Jonathan during the valedictory session that the volume of annual trade between Nigeria and the Netherlands had risen from about $2 billion when he arrived in 2006 to about $4 billion currently, while Jiango reported that the volume of annual trade between Nigeria and China now stood at about $7 billion per annum, up from $3 billion in 2006.

Encouraged by the increasing trade relations between both countries, President Jonathan reassured the international community of Nigeria’s determination to make the country an attractive destination for direct foreign investment.

 Speaking during the audiences, President Jonathan said the Federal Government would do everything within its powers to attract greater direct foreign investment to the country.

“We having a growing population of young people and as a government we have an enormous responsibility to plan and prepare for their future. Greater foreign investment will clearly help us in creating more gainful employment for our youths and we will do all we can to promote it,” Jonathan said.

Commending the increased volume of bilateral trade between Nigeria, China and the Netherlands, Jonathan stated that Nigeria was now opening its doors to foreign investors more than ever before especially in aviation, power and development of infrastructure.

He noted that before now, these sectors were solely run by the government but that now government had opened the sectors to private sector participation, a move, he said, is designed to boost the economic outlooks of the country. President Jonathan pledged government’s readiness to tackle all internal issues capable of hindering foreign investors, stressing that enormous efforts were been made to ensure that peace in the Niger Delta and the problem of power supply were seriously addressed.

He again reassured the outgoing ambassadors of his administration’s determination to conduct free and fair elections come 2011, maintaining that steps were been taken to plug gaps in the electoral system, which made it difficult to conduct credible elections in the past.

The president meanwhile thanked Arie Van Der Wiel of the Netherlands and Xu Jiango of China for their efforts in the past four years for promoting trade and cooperation between Nigeria and their respective countries, and wished them well at their new posts.