Jacob Wood, a Chinese entrepreneur in Nigeria, will be a member of the Nigerian delegation to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit and the Third Ministerial Conference to be held in early November in Beijing, where he looks forward to a chance to bring Chinese and African businesses together.

"I have been working in Nigeria for more than 30 years and I think the country, with a population of 150 million, has a comparatively big market. Nigeria also welcomes Chinese businesspeople to invest here," said Wood in an interview with ChinAfrica.

Wood, Chairman of the Board of Nigeria Golden Gate Group of Companies, first went to Nigeria in the 1970s to work in his father's textile factory . Nigeria is one of Africa's major cotton producers. Owing to the fierce competition in the textile industry, he chose to go to Canada to study hotel management, and worked in the Shangri-La Hotel after he returned to Nigeria.

In the mid-1990s, Western countries launched economic sanctions against Nigeria on the excuse of its human rights violations, which pulled the Nigerian economy into a downward spiral and forced many foreign-funded companies to pack up and leave. However, quick to see an opportunity, the forward looking Wood took the plunge and invested $8 million to establish the Golden Gate Paradise in Lagos, former capital of Nigeria. Wood's entrepreneurial spirit soon saw his business expand rapidly. He branched into other fields such as tourism, construction, interior decoration, building materials and wood processing. Currently, his group has more than a dozen ventures in Nigeria, with $100 million in total assets.

"China and Nigeria have a long-lasting and long-tested friendship, which we can feel in our daily life," said Wood, adding that the bilateral economic ties are becoming closer.

Sources from the Chinese Customs report that the volume of trade between China and Nigeria in 2005 totaled $2.83 billion, up 29.7 percent year on year. Nigeria has become China's second largest trading partner in Africa. Meanwhile, direct Chinese investment in Nigeria had reached $34.58 million by June this year, mainly in such sectors as steel, household electrical appliances, electric machinery, offshore fishery and woodworking.

China is currently working in cooperation with Nigeria to launch in 2007 NIGCOMSAT 1, the first communication satellite of Nigeria and Africa.

Making the connection

According to Wood, the previous generation of Chinese entrepreneurs who came to Nigeria in the 1950s have already integrated into local society, owning more than 70 percent of the Nigerian economy.

"We hope to establish a platform for Chinese enterprises to launch business in Nigeria," Wood told ChinAfrica.

Wood was designated as an advisor to the Nigerian president in July 2004. "President Olusegun Obasanjo gave me the important task of introducing Chinese investment and he welcomes more Chinese to invest in Nigeria because of the example set by the previous generation of Chinese entrepreneurs," said Wood.

He also helped the China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. contract the project of revamping the 3,000-km railway in Nigeria. It is China's largest construction project in Africa, worth $560 million.

"I focus my business in Nigeria and I hope to introduce more Chinese to the rising market," said Wood. In August, Wood came back to China to negotiate an investment with the Jiangsu Shinco Electronics Group Co. Ltd. and the Jiangsu Skyrun International Group to jointly establish an air conditioner assembly factory in Nigeria. The two Jiangsu-based companies are the leading household electrical appliance producers in the province.

Wood also plans to set up a TV set assembly factory in Nigeria which, he said, has no such production factory at present. He has chosen the Sichuan-based Changhong Electron Group Corp. and the SVA Electron Co. Ltd. as his potential partners.