Nigeria to host Indian, Nigerian joint film festival

India and Nigeria will hold a joint film festival to mark the 60th Republic day and 50th independence anniversaries of both the countries respectively.

Announcing this yesterday, Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria Mahesh Sachdev at a meeting with Nigerian Minister of Information and Communications Dora Akunyili said that the festival is scheduled to take place in Nigeria in January 2010 and would be hosted by the governments of both countries.

Sachdev said that the festival will serve as a vehicle for strengthening the cultural and economic ties that have existed between the two countries over the years.

"The two countries are the largest film producers in the world and the result of the partnership would benefit 1.1 billion people in India and 140 million Nigerians," he said.

Apart from collaborating with the audio-visual media in Nigeria, the Indian government has plans to train about 100 top management employees of the Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST) on current methods of sorting and delivering mails, he said.

Emphasising on the "long-standing friendly economic and cultural relationship", the Nigerian Minister said "the training of NIPOST staff will be a major boost to government's efforts at repositioning the postal sector to make it the highest employer of labour in the country."

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