to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Mohammed Rimi

 

Nigerian Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Mohammed Rimi, has advised Nigerians coming to Dubai for genuine businesses to consult with the Embassy or the Consulate before embarking on such ventures.

The ambassador gave the advice in an interview in Dubai at the 5th Edition of the Global Business Forum (GBF) on Africa tagged `Scale-Up Africa’ which kicked off on Monday.

Rimi said that it was always better to let the embassy know in advance of any business venture.

“In fact, if they need assistance, we wi find ll try as much as we can to provide them with such. There are those who already have their contacts before coming.

“For us to keep track of genuine busine house sses, they need to let us know; even if they have a partner here when they come.< o:p>

“They should let us know who their part business ners are when they come here and what they are doing. Fine, if they have done

“If not, we can also do some due diligence for them,” he said.

According to him, If you tell me you are dealing with Company A and that you are coming to meet with that company, whether you ask us or not to do due diligence, I will try to find out what that company is all about.

“Because a lot of the businesses happen which are not documented by the Consulate.

“So, it very difficult sometime for us to say there is this number of visitors coming to do business here in Dubai. So we do not have the statistics of people coming to do business in Dubai,” Rimi said.

On the image of Nigerians in that country, the ambassador said that the UAE Government and its citizens had high regards for Nigerians and Nigeria.

He noted that 98 per cent of Nigerians living or visiting in Dubai were well behaved.

The ambassador, however, said that there were over 10,000 Nigerians living in Dubai,.

Rimi described the government of UAE as very liberal and tolerant to all.

According to him, the country’s government had seen the world and equally moved round the world to see what was happening around.

The first session of the Forum examined key trends and technologies driving business growth across the African continent.