Why trade between Nigeria and Finland is low – Ambassador

Leena Pylvänäinen, the ambassador of Finland to Nigeria, has offered potential explanations for why trade between the two countries has been so low.

She stated in a special interview that, despite the fact that there are numerous explanations for the figures, it is always a matter of which figures are being examined.

“If you look at simple trade in goods, the customs data, the numbers are incredibly low but they do not capture all of the trade that we do because this data does not cover trade in services and they do not cover trade that goes via third countries and a lot of our trade is actually that type of trade,” Ms. Pylvänäinen said.

She did concede that the numbers could be higher, though.

She claims that the fact that Finland doesn’t purchase oil or gas from Nigeria is one of the reasons why trade between Finland and Nigeria appears to be relatively low in comparison to some other European nations.
One of our main goals for our relationship with Nigeria, according to Ms. Pylvänäinen, is to increase trade.

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She also cited the fact that despite having its first embassy in West Africa, Finland has historically had closer ties with nations in Eastern and Southern Africa than with those in West Africa.
She said, “Finland doesn’t know as much about West Africa.

One of the explanations she gave for the low trade figures was the business environment in Nigeria.

“You have to admit that this [Nigeria] is not the easiest place, especially for a small or medium-sized company from Finland,” Ms. Pylvänäinen said, adding that large Finnish companies like Nokia have established themselves in Nigeria and employ a sizable workforce there.

According to research, the largest economy in Africa, Nigeria, is currently ranked 131 out of 190 economies worldwide for ease of doing business.

After falling to 169 in 2016 and 141 in 2017, the nation was ranked 170 in 2015.
Ms. Pylvänäinen stated that despite this obstacle, the embassy in Nigeria hopes that the bigger, more established businesses can start to attract the smaller ones to trade while also establishing themselves.

Startups and innovators are one area that has seen very positive growth. Between the startup hubs in Finland and particularly Lagos, there are some quite interesting contacts taking place. We do intend to expand but also diversify our trade, she said.

She responded to a question from this newspaper by saying that there is an ongoing conversation in both directions about how to make doing business in Nigeria easier for Finnish companies.

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“I mean, we have the same dialogue with the Nigerian embassy, which covers Finland from Stockholm,” Ms. Pylvänäinen said, adding that “there are always issues that are easy to solve through information sharing, but the issues that sometimes confront European businesses in Nigeria are in no way unique to Finnish businesses. In light of this, there is also a very active discussion taking place in Lagos at the European Chamber of Commerce, and it is a continuous topic of conversation between the EU and Nigeria.