The German Ambassador to Nigeria, Dr Bernhard Schlagheck, has said that the volume of trade between Nigeria and Germany shrank to €3.5bn in 2016.
Schlagheck disclosed this in an interview in Abuja on Monday that the trade volume dropped by about €3.5bn from €6bn recorded in 2015.
The envoy blamed the fall on the economic downturn in Nigeria, expressing his determination to work toward increasing the volume of trade between the two countries.
He said that as part of efforts to deepen bilateral economic relations, the German Government was supporting market exploration missions by business delegations to Nigeria.
Schlagheck said that Germany had committed millions of Euros to vocational training in Nigeria and was prepared to keep promoting the programmes.
“The German Government has a whole range of activities in various states in this country and we have invested €50m in vocational training in Nigeria in a year.
“We are doing a lot of other training in Nigeria. In various states, we have projects of German enterprises with some private partners.
“So, we have whole lots of training to enhance capacity building in Nigeria.”