Bilateral trade between Nigeria and India rose to about $9 billion in the 2025/2026 financial year, up from $7.13 billion recorded in the previous financial year, the Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Abishek Singh, has disclosed.

Singh made the disclosure at a media briefing in Abuja, where he said the growing trade volume reflected the deepening economic relationship between both countries, with trade and investment remaining a major pillar of their strategic partnership.

“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,” Singh said.

The High Commissioner said more than 200 Indian companies were operating in Nigeria in sectors including pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, power, construction, consumer goods, healthcare and services.

He said the companies were increasingly manufacturing locally, creating employment for nearly 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,” Singh said.

According to him, Indian companies had consequently become the second-largest employers of Nigerians after the Federal Government.

Singh said the Nigeria-India relationship had evolved beyond historical goodwill and oil trade into a multidimensional strategic partnership covering security, technology, food security, health, agriculture, energy and global governance.

The Deputy High Commissioner, Vertika Rawat, who continued the briefing, highlighted India’s health sector transformation, saying the country’s latest National Family Health Survey demonstrated significant progress in maternal and child health, immunisation, nutrition, healthcare financing and women’s empowerment.

Rawat said the sixth National Family Health Survey, released by India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in May 2026, covered 639,000 families across 707 districts.

“NFHS-6 is the largest single-round household health survey ever undertaken anywhere in the world,” she said.

According to her, the survey showed that antenatal care now reached 96 per cent of pregnant women in India, while institutional deliveries had increased to 90.6 per cent.

She said full immunisation among children aged 12 to 23 months increased from 83.8 per cent to 87.1 per cent, while vaccine coverage among children remained above 96 per cent nationwide.

“What moves me the most is that 95.6% 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,” Rawat said.

The Deputy High Commissioner also highlighted progress in child nutrition, saying stunting among children under five declined from 35.5 per cent to 29.3 per cent.

She attributed the improvement to the implementation of national programmes including POSHAN Abhiyaan and the Integrated Child Development Services programme.

Rawat said India had also recorded significant progress in financial protection for healthcare, with household coverage under health insurance or financing schemes rising from 41 per cent to 60.2 per cent.

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She noted that the figure represented a 12-fold increase from the 4.9 per cent recorded in 2005.

On women’s empowerment, Rawat said the proportion of Indian women who had ever used the internet had risen from 33.3 per cent to 64.3 per cent, while nine out of 10 women now operated their own bank or savings account.

She said the developments were particularly relevant to Nigeria because health cooperation remained an important component of the bilateral relationship.

“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,” Rawat said.

She disclosed that India currently supplied about 40 per cent of Nigeria’s pharmaceutical imports, with its share exceeding 90 per cent for some categories of medicines.

Rawat said Indian pharmaceutical exports to Nigeria reached $315 million in the 2024/2025 financial year, while Indian companies had invested about $4 billion in pharmaceutical manufacturing in Nigeria.

“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 added that India was willing to deepen health-sector cooperation as Nigeria pursued universal health coverage, particularly through the exchange of policy experience and capacity building.

Rawat said India’s Ayushman Bharat model, which she linked to the country’s expansion in health insurance coverage, offered an approach that Nigeria could explore alongside continued training of Nigerian health professionals under India’s ITEC programme.

“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 described the health partnership between both countries as part of a broader relationship built around shared development aspirations.

“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.