THE Miami- Dade County Mission has expressed its intention to seek stronger ties with Nigeria through various sectors of the economy including maritime, aviation and other trade to garner a mutually beneficial front for both Nigeria and the United States of America municipal.
The group made this known on a Monday 20th June, 2022 as over 40 delegates from different fields from the US interacted with Nigerians from various strata of the economy including the aviation industry to express their intent to build stronger business bonds.
Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Captain Rabiu Hamisu Yadudu who gave the welcome remarks said FAAN is consistently seeking new avenues for expansion and not depending mainly on aeronautical sources of revenue.
The MD represented by Director of Finance and Accounting, Mrs. Nike Aboderin enjoined all in attendance to exchange business ideas and explore prospects of expansion and ways of collaboration with delegates from Miami-Dade County.
Also speaking, Director, Human Resources, FAAN, Mr. Norris Anozie was said that FAAN as an agency would grow the relationship established stressing that FAAN would re
Anozie said,”Our take home as an authority is to build the relationship and in building that relationship we would find similarities between both sides. We have the opportunity to expand and diversify those similarities. We are happy they came and established a relationship and we hope this would help grow our own facilities and passengers as part of they visit Is to expand tourism, to expand Transport
On the exchange program that was in place before halted he said, “like the acting MD said, we are going to jumpstart that program again. It was stopped for some reasons one was COVID-19 and two there were some logistics we needed to overcome but we are going to start that program again but this time around make it more robust.”
Speaking from the aviation point of view and need for stronger ties, Director, Terminal Operations Division for the Miami- Dade Airport department , Rupen Philloura called for direct connection between Nigeria and Miami- Dade directly as that airport is a direct link to Latin and North America and the Caribbean markets.
Philloura inferred that despite the lack of a direct connection Nigeria is still the fourth largest market to the airport, barely tapping it’s resources.
He however said, a lot of research on the numbers had to go in to understand the impact of flights between Miami-Dade and Nigeria.
He said, “it is premature to measure the impact but we are approaching with open mindedness as both parties needed to do market research on both ends and see the viability of passenger volume and also the trade logistics, this is just a first step”
In his closing remarks, Miami-Dade County Commissioner (County 2), Honorable Jean Monestine, said the intent of the mission is to get Nigeria to reciprocate the visit and open business opportunities by starting direct flights between Nigeria and Miami-Dade so as to cut out the transit and increase traffic both passenger and cargo.
He said,”We come here to establish a relationship with the people of Nigeria we encourage them to visit as tourist or for commercial and trade using our airport and seaport, so the economy of respective communities can be furthered and that is exactly why we are here. We have representatives of our airport, representatives of our seaport, representatives of out tourism board and so many business opportunities.
At the meeting represented were ground handlers, SAHCO, Accident Investigation Bureau-Nigeria, Nigeria Immigration Service, trade and investment professionals
