President of the Nigeria-Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Principal Consultant of Secure Trust Consulting Limited, Mr Oye Akinsemoyin, tells FELIX OLOYEDE how Nigeria is leveraging its trade relationship with the Asian country

Tell something about the activities of the Nigeria-Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Right now, between Nigeria and Vietnam, the two-way trade balance is over $1bn. And believe it or not, Nigeria has a larger share. Our items that Vietnam is buying are worth about $600m, whereas Vietnam gets about $400m. So, we have the lion’s share of the trade items, and we’re hoping that we will expand.

How did you come about Vietnam?

I will say that it’s by providence. The reason I’m saying that is that I have been involved in the chamber of commerce movement before I joined the Nigeria-Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry. I was the vice president, but I had to step down because I was bubbling with all kinds of ideas about what I thought I could do to help Nigeria. But I wasn’t getting enough encouragement where I was, so I had to leave. And then, fortunately, the then-President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, visited Vietnam around 2003 on a state visit, and one of the people who accompanied him was the director of bilateral economic development in the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In one of the sessions, they had over there, Obasanjo told the private sector group that they should liaise with the ambassador. He (the director of bilateral economic development) was the one who approached me when he got back, having realised my antecedents with the other chamber of commerce. He said with my experience and the way I do things, that was the kind of thing that I should do. So, he introduced me to one of the pioneers who set up a Nigeria-Vietnam Chamber of Commerce. We began the idea of setting up the chamber of commerce from the living room of the then-Vietnamese trade consul, Mr Kong. Just four of us.  That was in 2007. There have been a lot of ups and downs, but from $50m bilateral trade at that time, today, I thank God, owing to some of the efforts that we put in, and it’s now well over $1bn trade balance.

Most of our exports are primary products. How has Nigeria been benefiting from this trade relationship with Vietnam?

Yes, you are correct. The items that we trade with Vietnam are mostly primary products like raw cashew nuts, coconuts, ginger, corn, etc. But to talk of what we benefit from Vietnam, there has been a lot of cooperation with Vietnam in maritime, because Vietnam has been very good in maritime. It’s not a surprise that they are one of the leaders in the export of seafood today.  So, they train our seafarers. The Nigerian seafarers have been to Vietnam for training. Also, we have benefited from Vietnam in the area of IT. Vietnam is one of the world leaders when it comes to tech, and that’s why you find out that high-tech giants, such as Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, and all these big IT companies have invested in Vietnam and have partnered with Vietnamese establishments.

Currently, Nigeria, through the activities of the chamber of commerce, has been planning to partner with the University of Lagos with the FPT in Vietnam for research, for setting up a research and production unit for items such as microchips and semiconductors in Nigeria. Currently, we are neck-deep in working with the Office of the Secretary to the Government of Nigeria, taking a special group to Vietnam to have a bilateral meeting, to have contact with the other side in different areas, especially in digital tech, the marine and blue economy sector, food security and youth unemployment, because one of the high points of this present administration is food security for Nigerians.

What do you think needs to be done to reverse the trend of the country exporting mainly raw materials?

A lot can be done, and a lot has already been done. I remember that Professor Yemi Osinbajo, when he was the Vice President, visited Vietnam in 2022, and I was in Vietnam at that time. One of those things that he said was that there’s no use coming to Nigeria and buying products in a very raw state, and that Vietnam must begin to gear up to be part of the campaign for processing raw materials in Nigeria. Not before that, before that, we’ve had people who have encouraged Vietnam groups and companies to be involved in processing Nigerian items.

We have companies that are investing in partnership with Vietnamese companies to process raw cashew nuts, to either fully process or semi-process items. So, that’s an area. Also, we have had cases of processing cotton, raw cotton, into items that are either semi-processed or fully processed. So, there are cases of organisations that have invested in Nigerian items to process them. Part of the problem we have been facing is that in cashew nut, which is one of the biggest areas of partnership between Nigeria and Vietnam, is that the sellers expect that they will be able to enjoy a free period of no rain until maybe June or July. But once rain starts, the market experiences a downturn.

So, we’ve had cases of people who are investing in dryers. And the chamber of commerce, we are working with the Federal Institute of Industrial Research in Oshodi. We’ve partnered with them to be able to draw a prototype for machines, drying machines for drying the raw cashew nut. The reason many people go to the Ivory Coast or Ghana to buy cashew nuts, many of the bulk buyers from Vietnam and other countries are concerned that our cashew nuts, once it starts to rain, they form mould. It becomes difficult for you to sell such items because of the moisture content. So, investment in dryers is one of those areas in which we believe that Nigeria can turn the tide around and favour itself by being able to have a stable quality of the cashew nuts throughout the year.

Vietnam is strong in agriculture, and Nigeria faces many challenges regarding food security. So, how is your chamber stepping in to ensure that the country leverages its relationship with Vietnam to address its food challenges?

The experience of Nigeria and Vietnam working together, partnering in this area, is a very unique one. Why? Because Vietnam itself, at a point in time, had the experience, a terrible experience of war, famine, food scarcity, and what have you. And after their experience, they were able to, within a short period, turn themselves around from a net importer of food to a net exporter of food, to the point that now Vietnam is the world’s largest exporter of rice. Vietnam is one of the world’s largest exporters of coffee, next to Brazil. Vietnam is the world’s largest exporter of seafood. Vietnam is the world’s largest exporter of pepper. So, they have been able to do a lot of… And how have they been able to succeed so far in that direction? They are using micro, small, and medium enterprises. Around families, small units, they have been able to farm, and the government has also encouraged them by setting up farm settlements and industrial parks, to the point that today, Vietnam, using the micro, small, and medium enterprises sector alone, generates about $72bn annually from the cottage industries. They enjoy economies of scale by being able to partner in sourcing credit, power, infrastructure, etc.  Today, the MSME sector in Vietnam is one of the biggest contributors to GDP in Vietnam.

Their turnaround has been due mainly to their resourcefulness and the fact that they are able to work together in terms of partnership with one another, using the micro, small, and medium enterprises. They have digitalised that sector, to being able to make the sector very active economically. Whenever we visit Vietnam, we make sure that we visit farm settlements so that we can learn one thing or the other from the agri-sector in Vietnam. The experience of the Nigerians who have visited Vietnam, especially for food security, it’s been very, very encouraging. The government has signed many bilateral agreements in the area of agriculture and food security in Vietnam.

The present government has set up a food security unit in the Presidency, and now the President has categorically made clear that the office of the Secretary to the Government should supervise the area of food security. We have been working with the Office of the SGF Very recently, we had a meeting with the office of the Secretary to the Government. We had useful deliberations, and we’re only expecting that all the submissions from the government sectors that participated will come in, and then we will start inviting, making, and sending out invitations to those who will participate in our visit to Vietnam, perhaps in October or so.

So, these are some of those plans that we have in place for helping our farmers. Many of the things that the government will do are to make sure that they help to position our farmers in a way that they will be able to enjoy the agreements that governments have put in place.

Recently, the Vietnamese president asked our president to visit his country. If you were to advise the president, what do you think should be topmost on the agenda of the president while visiting Vietnam?

Already, our vice president was in Vietnam in 2022. There was a visit before our vice president’s visit. A high-ranking visit of their deputy prime minister to Nigeria. But then, just before Nigeria reciprocated, there was COVID-19. COVID-19 intervened, and so we couldn’t go at the time we were supposed to go. But eventually our vice president returned that visit.

So, the invitation we have is also quite high-level. During the visit of our vice president, he signed a defence pact between the two countries. Just before he visited, there was a bilateral, reciprocal investment promotion and protection agreement, which was signed, and an avoidance of double taxation agreement, which has been signed. So, for investment, there’s hardly any area that has not been covered. And so, we feel that the invitation should be to push more and ensure that, since our challenge, the most pressing need that we have now is for collaboration in food security and youth unemployment.

So, the focus should be on food security. We will look at the comparative advantage and make sure we choose the areas where Vietnam has a comparative advantage over Nigeria. And one of them is digital tech, and the maritime and blue economy. Those are the areas that we feel that the concentration or attention of policymakers should be so that they’ll be able to make the most of the visit.

So, what would you say has been your chamber’s greatest achievement in the last 18 years?

From next to nothing in 2007, we’ve been able to in 2008, we’ve been able to sign a landmark collaboration agreement with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry. We call them VCCI. We are Nigeria Nigeria-Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The distinction is that VCCI is a part and parcel of the government of Vietnam. We are the private sector. But VCCI is, it works in an advisory capacity to the government of Vietnam, to the point that they participate in their National Economic Council, the highest decision-making body of government in Vietnam. We enjoy a lot of uplifting from that collaboration, because anytime we need help in terms of doing things in Vietnam, they are the ones who have assisted us.

We’ve also had a lot of trade promotion visits to Vietnam to attend trade fairs, where products from Nigeria are put on trade show in the exhibition hall. So, we’ve learned a lot of things in that area. We have also been able to bring trade missions from Vietnam to Nigeria

For example, a confectionery company visited Nigeria two years ago. We were able to set up meetings with the UAC of Nigeria for them. They visited the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry. They were at the oil and gas food processing authority of Nigeria.

By November this year, they are planning to come back to start the process of setting up a confectionery processing company in Nigeria. They’ve asked us to start putting a package, a feasibility package, together for them, for establishing a company in Nigeria.

The 34th Vietnam International Trade Fair was held earlier in the year. So, what is the fallout of that trade fair?

We were supposed to be there for that trade fair, but unfortunately, we had to step things down because that was the time there was an earthquake in Myanmar, whose impact was felt in Vietnam. And in that South-East Asia region, about six countries felt the impact of the natural disaster. It was felt in Vietnam.  We decided that it wasn’t the best of times to visit Vietnam.