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Chiedu Osakwe, director general of the Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiation, has said that the Federal government is currently pushing for a bordeless African market that will unlock the continent’s $1.3 trillion potential.
Osakwe said the Office for Trade Negotiations was already in advanced talks with several other African countries for a single bordeless market being pushed by the government. He said the government was making trade and investment twin engines of economic growth and diversification away from oil.
A high level meeting which would see match-making Nigerian businesses with their African counterparts, Osakwe said, would commence in first week of November, noting that the meeting tagged ‘Facilitating Trade and Investment for Development’, a high-level Policy and Private sector Trade and Investment Facilitation partnership forum, was to be co-hosted by Nigeria and the ECOWAS Commission in partnership with the World Trade Organisation Friends of Investment Facilitation for Development.
The central focus of the meeting,according to him, was to match-make Nigerian businesses with their global and African counterparts,especially now the Federal government is determined to boost the business environment for businesses and other forms of investment in the country.
”Nigeria’s leadership role in Continental Free Trade Agreements is key.In this forthcoming meeting,the Secretary General for United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and key officials of the World Trade Organisations would pull in efforts with the Nigerian government to engage multi-lateral cooperation to leverage opportunities for investments,” he said.
Our focus here is inserting Nigerian businesses including the small and medium enterprises into regional and global value chain,Osakwe noted.
He said,”In our region here,our focus is to establish integrated manufacturing trade structures,based on which Nigerian producers and manufacturers shall be linked into value chains in the region,,focusing on metals,cement,plastics, pharmeceuticals,Agriculture and related agribusiness.”
Osakwe said that the gains of the match-making were unqauntifiable,adding that President Muhammadu Buhari would take the talk on a single borderless markets further into the meeting of the African Union of Heads of Sstates as they prepared to meet in December.
We are waiting to harvest signals of investors interested in Nigerian economy at this meeting. Both globally and continental commitment.It is also an important demonstration of Nigeria’s economic and trade policy leadership in the continent..
BusinessDay findings show that the meeting targets free flow of goods and services in Nigeria’s Continental Frre Trade Area.It is part of Nigeria’s leadership under the current government in World Trade Organisation.This is part of President Buhari’s plan to deepen economic and regional integration in ECOWAS and African market establishing single market.
Industry watchers say Nigeria has not harvested full benefits of 1.2 billion population in Africa and the ECOWAS’ 350 million people.
Already,a number of foreign delegations are in contact with the Nigerian Office of Trade Negotiation,seeking ways of advancing Nigeria’s Trade and Economic relations. Osakwe said the meeting he held with the Tunisian Ambassador to Nigeria recently was a confirmation on renewed interest in the opportunities in the Nigerian economy,and these opportunities are aggressively and constructively being examined by our foreign counterparts.
”You have the recent news of the things of Boeing(An Aircraft Manufacturing company) trying to establish an office in Nigeria. We need to keep at this,impact on this through various value chain connects,and they would be determined by market conditions of the ease of doing busines.”
The Continental Free Trade Agreements, which the Nigerian government is pushing, has the prospects of engendering bigger economy,increase market access for products,increased industrialisation,improved competitiveness of products,enhanced food security,and a more efficient infrastructure,an expert said.
Tony Ejinkonye, president of Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the push for a Continental Free Trade Area would increase trade and investment opportunities for African nations and expand opportunities even among their global trading peers.
Apart from poor intra-Afrian trade,findings show that the United Kingdom is for instance not sufficient in food and still has to import £30bn worth of food annually. Nigeria only accounts for £15mn of such imports,but with the kind of partnership Nigeria government has with the British Government,it ought to be more than that”, Celestine Okeke,a lead partner, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency said.
In terms of macro-economy,the country is out of recession,with the growth rate of 0.55 percent, which shows it could still do better.Growth is underway and Nigeria could do better,and with the series of reforms on the ease of doing business,Nigeria government could attract more private capital into the economy, say analysts.
HARRISON EDEH, Abuja
