The Chinese government has agreed to offer 700 scholarships and expertise training to 1,000 Nigerians especially engineers in the space development sector.
The scholarship and training are part of agreements the Nigerian government reached with China, during the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Minister of Science and Technology Doctor Ogbonnaya Onu, gave a hint about the agreement on Monday while briefing reporters of the outcome of the visit.
“Investments Above Imports”
He said: “What we expect that would be coming in would be investments. Investments”.
The Minister of Science and Technology Doctor Ogbonnaya Onu, said that the Federal Government had signed agreements with the Chinese government for investments in different sectors of the economy especially transportation, communication, scholarships and science and technology.
The Minister told Channels Television on Monday that a ground receiving station that would link Nigeria to China’s satellite base was to be built at no cost.
“The Chinese Minister of Science and Technology offered to build a ground receiving station in Nigeria at no cost to us.
“It will enable Nigerian scientists to collect data from all Chinese satellites.
“We want to start assembling satellites and at some level it will help our space agency to start making money just like the Chinese are doing now,” Dr. Onu explained.
But the Minister said that Nigeria must first set up an assemble-integrate-and-test facility so it would starts producing its own satellites for development in agriculture, advanced crime control and other things.
He said that the government had made provision for it in the budget and that the civil works would begin once the budget is signed.