It is now in the midst of negotiation with the British multinational bank, which focuses on providing financing to African, Asian, and Middle East markets, intending to fund an upgrade of a narrow-gauge track in the South-East and the building of a standard-gauge on the coast, both projects estimated at $14.4 billion, Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi told Bloomberg in an interview.

The railway infrastructure will be constructed by China Civil Engineering Construction Corp (CCECC), which has entered a pact with the government.

“We’ve moved away from China in some of our projects,” the minister said on Saturday in Abuja and added during his discussion with Bloomberg that Zainab Ahmed, his counterpart in the finance ministry, would lead Nigeria’s talks with Standard Chartered.

Choosing not to borrow from China could be a ploy by the government to cut Nigeria’s exposure to the country, which stood at $3.4 billion as of the end of March, going by the figures issued by the debt office on Wednesday.

Nigeria spent about 12.6 percent or $195.5 million of the entire money is used to service its external debt last year to pay part of its debt to China.

Standard Chartered commenced operation in Nigeria 22 years ago and midwifed the inflow of investments of $2.5 billion into Africa’s largest economy in 2020 alone of the total $9.7 billion, the biggest by any bank, Bloomberg said Thursday, citing data from the statistics office.

Mr. Amaechi had in March said at the groundbreaking of the CCECC’s revamp of the Eastern Line connecting Port Harcourt to Maiduguri that a consortium of Chinese financiers would support the project.

State-owned CCECC inked a deal valued at $11.2 billion with Nigeria in 2014 for the building of the Coastal Line that would link Lagos with Calabar in the South-South.