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On April 23, 2008, Mr. Yu Jianlong, Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of CIETAC received the visit by the delegation of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA). The NBA delegation was headed by Mr. Olisa Agbakoba, President of NBA.
NBA is the umbrella body of all lawyers admitted to practice law in Nigeria. It was officially recognized by law in 1933 and is now made up of 88 branches, spreading across the 36 states of Nigeria.
The NBA delegation to China, with a belief that the relations between China and Nigeria will be even stronger than ever, wanted to increase understanding of the legal system and ADR development in China, to discuss these topics with insiders of the Chinese legal community and to establish closer contacts with relevant Chinese organizations.
During the meeting with NBA, Mr. Yu made a brief introduction of CIETAC covering its history, growth, function, jurisdiction, and organization. Mr. Olisa Agbakoba was impressed by the different functions of the CIETAC Secretariat compared to other international arbitration bodies and said that the CIETAC administrative practice was a good model for them to refer to.
The discussion between CIETAC and NBA was mainly focused on the topics of cost of arbitration, time span of a case, and the attitude of the courts towards arbitration.
NBA representatives emphasized that the Nigerian foreign trade investment policy was shifting to China as the bilateral trade and investment exchange between the two countries was increasing dramatically. They expressed their eagerness to establish a cooperative model with CIETAC so as to work out a way easy for businessmen from both Nigeria and China to settle disputes and to incorporate the informal sector of dispute resolution to a formal forum of ADR in Nigeria.
Mr. Yu Jianlong expressed his appreciation for the proposal raised by the NBA delegation. He pointed out that as the No. 1 oil producer in Africa and No. 4 in the world, there would be a big margin for Nigeria to promote its economic development, and that the potential for the economic and trade cooperation between China and Nigeria would be huge. Under such circumstances, it would be very useful to help the Chinese companies present in Nigeria to get to know about arbitration and other ADR mechanisms. CIETAC would be pleased to cooperate with NBA in promoting arbitration and ADR in Nigeria, and provide high quality arbitration services to both Chinese and Nigerian enterprises.
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