Abuja — Nigeria and Niger Republic have expressed willingness to collaborate on the construction and rehabilitation of road networks linking both countries, to boost trade and economic ties.

This was made known during a courtesy visit to the Minister of Transport, Mrs Diezeani Alison-Madueke, by Niger's Minister of Equipment, Alhaji Damuni Haruna. Niger shares a common boundary with Nigeria from the North with a transportation link that is almost 100 per cent on land.

Speaking while receiving the delegation in her office, Alison-Madueke said both countries have areas of common interests, particularly where it concern road rehabilitation and construction on routes along common boundary, which nationals of both countries utilise on a regular basis. She said the border roads are in dire need of rehabilitation and reconstruction. She added that because of their strategic importance, government would engage the Niger officials in further discussions to work out modalities for achieving the objective "I want to assure you that we are looking into it and we are already making plans for those areas of the roads that have been previously discussed by the two countries," she said.

She noted that the expectation is that officials of the Ministry of Transport and the Niger delegation would go into further bilateral discussions to immediately fashion out structured templates on how to progress on this mutually-beneficial venture. Haruna said the group is in the country to explore areas of cooperation, especially to secure mutually beneficial collaborative venture in the transport sector.

"Our aim is to find ways of collaborating with Nigeria to develop a good transportation link to enhance trade exchanges across our common border," he said.