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Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, has expressed the continued readiness of Brazil to assist in the development of the Nigerian agricultural sector.

This is even as the President of Brazil, Michel Temer, stressed the importance of the historic warm relations between Nigeria and Brazil enhanced by a week-long visit of the Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister.

The reiteration of Brazil’s commitment to develop the Nigerian agricultural sector took place during Onyeama’s working visit to Brazil.

The American and Caribbean Affairs Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, disclosed this in a statement made available to Daily Sun in Abuja by the media aide to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sarah Sanda.

The visit by the minister was undertaken with the objective to strengthen the longstanding cordial political relations between Nigeria and Brazil, discuss areas of promoting bilateral economic ties and explore new areas of mutually-beneficial cooperation.

During the visit, Onyeama had extensive discussions with the Minister of External Relations of Brazil, Mr. Aloysio Nunes Ferreira, on a broad range of bilateral issues which included Agricultural Cooperation, Aviation, Defence and Counter Terrorism, Education, Investment Drive and Trade Promotion, Social Welfare Programmes, Transfer of Prisoners, among others.

Recall that Ferreira had in October 2017, paid a two-day working visit to Nigeria.

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During his visit, the Brazilian Foreign Minister held bilateral meetings with Onyeama and the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh.

At the end of the visit, Nigeria and Brazil came up with a Draft Investment Cooperation and Facilitation Agreement; Draft Agreement on Transfer of Prisoners; Draft Cooperation Agreement on Agricultural Development under the More Food International Programme; and Extradition Agreement.

“The Minister of Foreign Affairs during the  visit to Brazil, he held extensive discussions with the Minister of External Relations of Brazil, Mr. Aloysio Nunes Ferreira, on a broad range of  bilateral issues which included Agricultural Cooperation, Aviation, Defence and Counter Terrorism, Education, Investment Drive and Trade Promotion,  Social Welfare Programmes, Transfer of Prisoners, among others.

“In this regard, Brazil has reiterated its readiness to assist Nigeria’s agricultural development efforts through the More Food International

Programme, share experience in the School Feeding Programme and other social intervention policies, collaborate in counter terrorism and Intelligence gathering, as well as institutional capacity building in diplomatic training, through a proposed collaboration between Brazil’s Alexandre de Gusamo Foundation Institute for Research on International Relations (IPRI) and the Nigerian Institute for International Affairs (NIIA),” the statement read.

Brazil, South America’s largest economy, ranks among the top industrialised countries in the world, with global leadership postion in agriculture, aviation, oil and gas, infrastructure, among other critical economic areas that Nigeria seeks to leverage on in the economic diversification drive of the current administration.

“Consequently, the Brazil Nigeria Mechanism for Strategic Dialogue, a platform aimed at intensifying engagement and sustaining high level dialogue between officials of the two countries, is expected to be revived soon at the Working Group level, preparatory to the Summit in 2019,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.