Ade Adefuye, the Nigerian Ambassador to the United States on Thursday disclosed that the bilateral trade between Nigeria and US rose from about $18bn in 2010 to $48 billion in 2013.
Adefuye disclosed this during an interactive session with the Federal House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora headed by Abike Dabiri-Erewa.
The envoy, who could not provide data of the actual number of Nigerians living in the US, however noted that the population of Nigerian citizens living in the USA is more than half of many African nations.
He further said that the number Nigerian citizens who migrated to the US with valid travelling documents is one-third lesser than those who migrated without valid travelling documents.
The envoy, however, noted some remarkable improvements in US-Nigeria relations, as the US removed so many restrictions placed on the shoulders of Nigerian citizens who wish to travel or indeed already migrated to the States in the last five years.
Speaking earlier, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the chairman of the House Committee on Diaspora Affairs stressed the need for the establishment of a Disapora Commission that would help in national planning.
She noted that the interaction was aimed at soliciting the assistance of the envoy in the efforts by the committee to help in the drive to establish a Nigeria-US Diaspora Population Commission.
