Will China’s Zero-tariff Regime Inspire Nigeria to Build Factories, Create Jobs?

China’s decision to grant duty-free access to its vast market to 53 African countries has opened a new front in the continent’s long-running struggle to break out of the commodity trap. For Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and most populous nation, the opportunity comes with a sharper political question: can Abuja convert preferential access to one of the world’s biggest consumer markets into factories, jobs, technology and value-added exports, or will the country remain largely a supplier of raw materials to Chinese industry? That question took centre stage in Abuja at an international seminar on China’s zero-tariff treatment for African countries, where Chinese diplomats and senior Nigerian officials offered converging but subtly different prescriptions on how the historic opening should reshape Nigeria-Africa-China economic relations, Michael Olugbode reports.

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