India’s economic footprint in Nigeria is expanding, with bilateral trade between both countries rising to about $9 billion in the 2025/2026 financial year, the Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Abishek Singh, has disclosed.
The latest figure represents a significant increase from the $7.13 billion recorded in the preceding financial year, underscoring the growing importance of Nigeria to India’s commercial and investment interests in Africa.
Singh disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja at a media briefing on Nigeria-India relations, where he said trade and investment remained central to the strategic partnership between the two countries.
“I am very happy to report that the trade for the financial year 2025-26 stands at around US dollar nine billion, which is up from US dollar 7.13 billion in the financial year 2024-25,” he said.
The envoy said the expanding trade relationship was being reinforced by the growing presence of Indian businesses in Nigeria, with more than 200 Indian companies currently operating across several sectors of the Nigerian economy.
He listed pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, power, construction, consumer goods, healthcare and services among the sectors attracting significant Indian business interests.
According to Singh, the investments are increasingly moving beyond the importation and distribution of goods to local manufacturing, with Indian companies establishing production facilities in Nigeria.
He said the trend had generated substantial employment opportunities for Nigerians, with Indian-owned companies employing close to 100,000 Nigerians.
“They are also making in Nigeria. They are producing in Nigeria; they have set up plants in Nigeria. And this has translated into close to 100,000 brothers and sisters from Nigeria being deployed, employed by these companies,” the envoy said.
Singh consequently described Indian companies as the second-largest employers of Nigerians after the Federal Government, highlighting the scale of their contribution to employment and economic activity.
The High Commissioner said the relationship between Nigeria and India had evolved considerably from its historical foundations and traditional focus on oil and commerce.
He described the current partnership as a multidimensional strategic relationship encompassing trade and investment as well as security, technology, food security, healthcare, agriculture, energy and global governance.
The development, he said, reflected the changing nature of relations between the two countries as both governments seek areas of cooperation capable of delivering tangible benefits to their populations.
The briefing also placed considerable emphasis on healthcare, particularly India’s experience in expanding access to affordable medical services and strengthening public health systems.
The Deputy High Commissioner, Vertika Rawat, used the occasion to highlight findings from India’s sixth National Family Health Survey, describing the exercise as a major source of data on the country’s progress in maternal and child health, immunisation, nutrition, healthcare financing and women’s empowerment.
Rawat said the survey, released by India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in May 2026, covered 639,000 families across 707 districts.
According to her, the survey was the largest single-round household health survey undertaken anywhere in the world.
She said the findings showed that antenatal care coverage had risen to 96 per cent of pregnant women, while institutional deliveries increased to 90.6 per cent.
Full immunisation among children aged between 12 and 23 months also increased from 83.8 per cent to 87.1 per cent, while overall vaccine coverage among children remained above 96 per cent nationwide.
Rawat said the strong reliance on public health facilities for vaccination demonstrated growing confidence in India’s healthcare system.
“What moves me the most is that 95.6 per cent of our children receive the majority of their vaccinations through public health facilities a clear and resounding vote of confidence by Indian families in the Indian public healthcare system,” she said.
India positions itself as Nigeria’s pharmaceutical partner
The Deputy High Commissioner also drew attention to the pharmaceutical dimension of the bilateral relationship, describing it as one of the most significant areas of India-Nigeria cooperation.
She disclosed that India currently accounts for about 40 per cent of Nigeria’s pharmaceutical imports, with the country’s share exceeding 90 per cent in some categories of medicines.
Indian pharmaceutical exports to Nigeria reached $315 million in the 2024/2025 financial year, while Indian companies have invested approximately $4 billion in pharmaceutical manufacturing in Nigeria, she said.
Rawat said the investment was helping to shift the relationship from simply supplying medicines to supporting local production.
“This is what it means in practice for India to be the pharmacy of the world. It means not only affordable medicines reaching Nigerian homes, but also manufacturing medicines in Nigeria for Nigerian homes,” she said.
She said India was prepared to further strengthen cooperation with Nigeria as the country works towards achieving universal health coverage.
Such cooperation, she said, could include policy exchanges, institutional partnerships and capacity building for Nigerian healthcare professionals.
Rawat also presented India’s Ayushman Bharat healthcare model as an area Nigeria could explore as it develops its own strategies for expanding health insurance coverage and achieving universal health coverage.
She said India’s experience could provide useful lessons while acknowledging that Nigeria would have to develop solutions suited to its own national circumstances.
“As Nigeria charts its own path towards universal health coverage, India believes the Ayushman Bharat model and other Indian policy models offers a template well worth exploring together, alongside the continued training of Nigerian health professionals under India’s ITEC flagship programme,” she said.
She further highlighted improvements recorded in India’s child nutrition outcomes, noting that stunting among children under five had declined from 35.5 per cent to 29.3 per cent.
She attributed the progress partly to the implementation of national interventions, including the POSHAN Abhiyaan and Integrated Child Development Services programmes.
On healthcare financing, Rawat said household coverage under health insurance or healthcare financing schemes had increased from 41 per cent to 60.2 per cent.
She noted that the figure represented a substantial increase from the 4.9 per cent recorded in 2005.
The survey also indicated progress in women’s economic and digital empowerment, with the proportion of Indian women who had ever used the internet rising from 33.3 per cent to 64.3 per cent.
Similarly, nine out of every 10 women in India now operate their own bank or savings account, she said.
Rawat said India’s health-sector achievements had direct relevance to Nigeria, given the growing emphasis both countries place on expanding access to affordable healthcare.
She identified immunisation, maternal and child healthcare, affordable medicines, healthcare financing and professional capacity building as areas where both countries could deepen cooperation.
“The very achievements of the National Family Health Survey—that is, expanding immunisation, affordable maternal and child care, and wider financial protection in healthcare are the same pillars on which our health partnership with Nigeria is built,” she said.
The developments in trade, investment and healthcare, she said, demonstrated that Nigeria-India relations were increasingly defined by practical development cooperation rather than historical ties alone.
She described the relationship as one in which both countries could leverage their respective experiences, markets and human resources to promote shared prosperity.
“These are not two separate stories. They are one and the same story of two nations, once united in the struggle against colonialism, and now united in the pursuit of health, dignity, and shared prosperity of our people,” Rawat said.
