From Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
The Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Nigeria, Cui Jianchun, has said China and Nigeria are in the process of ensuring the production of COVID-19 vaccines in the country.
Cui made the disclosure yesterday at a roundtable with the theme ‘Build an African-China Community with a Shared Future in the New Era: Nigeria’s Actions and Contributions’ organised by the Centre for China Studies (CCS).
Cui said both countries had no problem cooperating in the donation of Chinese vaccines, saying that the second issue on the table between the two countries was how to build a production line in Nigeria.
Cui further said the move was in tandem with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent remarks during the Eighth Ministerial Meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) that the Chinese Government will work with Chinese companies and Africans will be involved to work together to produce 400 million vaccines in Nigeria.
“I personally believe it is high time for the two countries to utilise this opportunity to not only to produce vaccines for this pandemic, we are preparing to do more research to meet the future demands against the pandemic,” Cui said.
Asked at what stage both countries were on the production line, Cui said discussions were underway and the two sides were meeting over how to cooperate in the production line.
“I think that in the coming months, you will know the exact news, the information on how can the two countries work together,” Cui added.
On if the idea was realisable, Cui said the idea of producing COVID-19 vaccines in Nigeria is possible and feasible, saying that there was the need to build trust between the two governments.
Earlier, the Chinese Ambassador noted that the donation of vaccines was very important to Nigeria because vaccines cannot be produced in the country.
He disclosed that the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Nigeria has got approval from the Chinese Government that China will donate more vaccines to Nigeria in three batches.
In his remarks, the Director, Centre for China Studies, Mr Charles Onunaiju, said the roundtable was to reflect on the opportunities of the recent outcomes of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation which was held in Dakar, Senegal.
While extending warm felicitations to the people of Senegal for excellent hosting of such fruitful meeting, Onunaiju also said like in the tradition of the FOCAC process, the Dakar conference bore bountiful fruits underlining the distinct feature of FOCAC not only as a platform for consultations and dialogue results.
He added that as in the two previous summits held in Johannesburg (2015) and Beijing (2018), the Dakar Ministerial Conference built and consolidated on the ten cooperation plans and eight initiatives, with an outline of nine programmes, obviously meant to inject impetus in the broad and comprehensive strategic cooperation between the two sides.
“In a speech delivered by video link, President Xi Jinping noted that Africa and China, having shared trench together in the struggle against colonialism and imperialism have in the current times ’embarked on a distinct path in our cooperation in our journey toward development and revitalization.’ Since the Beijing summit when president Xi proposed that China and Africa build an even stronger community of shared future, the combined effects of the FOCAC mechanism and strategic projects, enabling value addition to real national aggregates to Africa countries, including Nigeria,” Onunaiju said.