ABUJA, May 10 (Xinhua) -- Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday hailed China's support in realizing the west African country's infrastructure goals.

For what he described as "genuine efforts to improve our infrastructural development," Buhari expressed appreciation to the Chinese government while receiving in audience the Chairman of China Railway Construction Corporation Limited (CRCC) Chen Fenjian in Abuja, said a statement issued by the office of the president.

Nigeria's infrastructure, the president said, had deteriorated over the years, affecting the standard of living and leading to loss of lives through avoidable accidents.

"We are very grateful to China for the effort to rebuild our infrastructure, and for bringing technical expertise to the country. We will give the required support and cooperation, so that our old, out of date, and collapsed infrastructure might be turned around," Buhari said.

He promised to personally pay attention to the many projects being undertaken in the country, for the good of the Nigerian people.

Chen, who led a delegation to meet with the Nigerian president, said CRCC has expanded its operations to 124 countries worldwide. In Nigeria alone, the firm has at least 18,000 local employees.

Among the many projects CRCC is undertaking in the West African country are railway, dry port, free trade zone, and highways. About 40,000 more jobs are to be created from these ongoing projects in Nigeria, according to Chen.

"The sum of 250 million (U.S.) dollars will be invested in a dry port in Ibadan, Oyo State, and it will decongest the ports in Lagos and speed up clearance of goods by the customs service," he said.