Published : 2026-02-10
On 10 February 1971, the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Nigeria) established diplomatic relations.
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations, bilateral relations have developed smoothly. In 2005, the heads of state of China and Nigeria reached a consensus on establishing a strategic partnership.
In 2009, the two countries held their first strategic dialogue. In January 2021, the two countries established the China-Nigeria Inter-governmental Committee mechanism.
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations, China and Nigeria have signed agreements on trade, economy, technology, scientific and technological cooperation, and investment protection, and have established a joint economic and trade committee, which has convened six meetings to date.
Nigeria is China's largest project contracting market, second-largest export market, second-largest trading partner, and main investment destination country in Africa.
In 2020, the trade volume between China and Nigeria was 19.23 billion USD, of which China's exports amounted to 16.777 billion USD and imports amounted to 2.453 billion USD.
By the end of 2020, Chinese companies had cumulatively signed engineering contracts in Nigeria worth 132.2 billion USD and completed a turnover of 46.815 billion USD.
China's main export commodities are electromechanical products and textiles and garments, etc., while it imports crude oil and liquefied natural gas, etc.
There are more than 20 major contracting companies, including CCECC, CGC Overseas, Huawei, and ZTE, mainly involved in fields such as railways, highways, housing construction, power stations, water conservancy, communications, and well drilling.
In terms of cultural exchange between the two countries, China has been providing government scholarship places to Nigeria since 1964, and had accepted a total of 1,305 scholarship students by 2019.
In 2018, there were 7,527 Nigerian students studying in China, of whom 558 were government scholarship students.
Since 2010, 20 Chinese undergraduate or graduate students have gone to universities such as Bayero University in Nigeria for short-term study of the Hausa language or to conduct research on African issues.
Soochow University and the University of Lagos have been selected as partners in the Ministry of Education of China's "20+20 Cooperation Plan among Chinese and African Universities".
In 2008, China opened two Confucius Institutes at Nnamdi Azikiwe University and the University of Lagos in Nigeria respectively.
By the end of 2019, China had offered more than 341 various Chinese language and cultural courses in Nigeria, training over 10,000 registered students.
