Nigeria Signs Landmark Partnership With UAE, Seeks $30 Billion In Green Finance

The agreement is expected to accelerate deals across agriculture, real estate, digital banking, retail and infrastructure, according to Nigerian officials, as Africa’s most populous nation seeks to anchor growth beyond oil. 

Nigeria signed a sweeping trade and investment pact with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a move President Bola Tinubu said will open duty-free access for thousands of Nigerian products and deepen capital inflows into Africa’s fourth-largest economy as it pushes economic reforms. 

The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, or CEPA, was signed Tuesday in UAE’s capital Abu Dhabi on the sidelines of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, with Tinubu and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in attendance. The deal eliminates tariffs on more than 7,000 Nigerian products entering the UAE and gradually removes duties on machinery, vehicles and industrial inputs imported into Nigeria. 

Tinubu said the agreement would expand opportunities for Nigerian exporters and manufacturers while giving Emirati investors greater confidence to deploy capital into Nigeria’s productive sectors, including infrastructure, renewable energy, logistics and digital trade. 

“For Nigerians, this agreement is not abstract,” Tinubu said in a public statement. “It supports our industrialization and diversification goals and strengthens Nigeria’s position as a gateway for trade and investment into Africa.” 

Nigeria will also co-host Investopia, the UAE-backed global investment platform, in its commercial capital Lagos in February, Tinubu said, as part of efforts to attract foreign capital and accelerate sustainable investment inflows. 

The pact comes as Nigeria seeks to rebuild investor confidence following currency reforms, subsidy removals and a push to boost non-oil exports. Tinubu said non-oil exports have risen 21% amid a broader diversification drive, with more than $50 billion in investment commitments recorded across key sectors. 

According to Nigerian financial expert, Iheakanwah Felix Arinzeh, this agreement will raise the ceiling of what Nigerian firms can achieve.  

“Whether Nigeria actually reaches that ceiling depends on execution: infrastructure, financing, regulation, and firm-level discipline. The agreement opens the door; walking through it is a separate, very Nigerian challenge,” Arinzeh tells FORBES AFRICA. 

He notes that for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are already into exports, the pact will “surely” add to the bottom line. “For firms sitting on the fence, it changes the investment calculus. When trade friction falls, capital tends to follow.” 

Trade between the two countries has expanded rapidly. Non-oil trade reached $3.1 billion in the first nine months of 2025, according to UAE Trade Minister Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, following a 55% jump in 2024. UAE non-oil exports to Nigeria rose 76% year-on-year during the same period. 

Under the agreement, Nigerian exporters will gain immediate duty-free access for agricultural and industrial goods including seafood, oil seeds, cereals, pharmaceuticals and chemicals. Tariffs on Nigerian machinery, vehicles and electrical equipment will be phased out over three to five years. Nigerian firms will also be able to establish operations in the UAE, while business visitors can stay up to 90 days annually. 

Nigeria, in return, will eliminate tariffs on about 6,000 UAE products, with most cuts focused on industrial inputs and capital goods. Its import prohibition list will remain in place. 

Industry, Trade and Investment Minister Jumoke Oduwole, who led Nigeria’s negotiations, said the agreement would address long-standing barriers to foreign direct investment and help scale local manufacturing for export under President Tinubu’s reform agenda. 

The CEPA also builds on an investment protection agreement ratified last year and follows a series of large Emirati-backed projects in Nigeria, including the $18.5 billion Centenary City development in the capital Abuja and UAE-supported financing for the Lagos-Calabar coastal road. 

Zeyoudi said the deal reflects the Emirates’ strategy of forging long-term partnerships with high-growth economies, positioning Nigeria as a “gateway to West Africa” and the African Continental Free Trade Area’s 1.4-billion-person market. 

Nigeria aims to mobilize as much as $30 billion a year in climate and green industrial finance as it expands electricity access and pursues a net-zero emissions target by 2060, Tinubu said, calling for greater use of blended finance to channel private capital into emerging markets.