ABUJA (Web Content Management Team Report) –
The ECOWAS Commission in collaboration with the European Union has organised an ECOWAS Development Partners Regional Economic Integration Group Meeting at the Osun Hall of the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Maitama Abuja to foster regional economic integration and competitiveness in the West African Region.
While speaking at the event which held on Monday June 29, 2015, the Head of EU Delegation, Michael Arrion represented by the Head of Operations (EU), Brian O’neil on behalf of the EU delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS expressed delight for being present at the donor coordination group meeting on regional economic integration. He also noted that the theme chosen for the discussion was very much to the point, since all participants at the occasion are involved in fostering regional economic integration and private sector competitiveness in West Africa as a key driver for economic growth and employment generation.
According to him, the many reasons for the coordination group meeting was find solutions to the existence of poor trading infrastructure and logistics, low utilisation of trade liberalisation regimes (ETLS), cumbersome and complex customs procedures and cross-border anti-competitive practices, among others in the West African region. He added that the West African sub – region is yet to equitably participate in global trade; noting that opportunity exists for West Africa to gradually integrate into the global trade system through trade agreements with key players such as the EU.
Michael Arrion affirmed the willingness of EU Commission to help West Africa integrate into the global trade system; saying in terms of attracting investments, West Africa has been branded as a difficult region for doing business and the concept has resulted to short economic expansion and small job creation capacity with little opportunity provided for the teeming young populace in the sub-region.
“With abundant natural and human resources and access to markets, the only thing holding West Africa back is West Africa itself. We need to move from talking the talk to walking the talk,” he observed.
“This donor thematic group in regional economic integration provides us with a forum to regularly discuss the progress, milestones and challenges that the region faces. We look forward to hearing from ECOWAS about progress in meeting the challenges and working with them to see how our development cooperation instruments can help further this progress in our future development cooperation programmes in the West African Region.”
In his opening remarks at the event, the Director of Trade (ECOWAS), Dr Gbenga Obideyi stated that challenges facing the ECOWAS community have called fro the establishment of a clear roadmap for a market and economic development initiative in ECOWAS. While stating that the theme of this year’s meeting is “Fostering Regional Economic Integration and Competitiveness in West Africa,” he intensified that the rationale for the meeting is based on need for the ECOWAS Commission to provide information to development partners on the implementation of the community development programme and progress on its blueprint by various governments.
“Therefore the meeting seeks to provide an insight into the efforts of the ECOWAS Commission and development partners with respect to regional integration and its agenda and to seek for support by development partners,” he iterated.
In his welcome statement, the Commissioner for Microeconomic Policy & Economic Research, H. E Ibrahim Bocar Ba (Dr) said that the meeting took place at the time when all independent partner were on ground. Adding participants at the meeting aimed at making sure that they deepen the process of integration.
“During the Extra-Ordinary Meeting of Heads of States & Governments on the 25th of October 2013 in Dakar, the ECOWAS CET was adopted and was supposed to be launched on 25th of January 2015. It was at this meeting that the supervision of the agreement on EPA (Economic Partnership Agreement) with the European Union was given to the President of Senegal and the file given to the President of Burkina Faso and that of Ghana,” he explained.
“For that we adopted also the Identity Card of ECOWAS. When it comes to CET, EPA or ECOWAS currency, we in partnership with the private sector have developed the strategy for making sure that we put together and install the partnership agreement before this development partners as well as the private sector.”
According to Ibrahim Bocar Ba, all the member-states have appended their signatures to this agreement and the partners are working up to the convergence criteria for the single currency, the National Biometric Identity Card as well as Microeconomic Fund in West Africa. He also noted on the price of crude oil in the region that Nigeria which contributes 75% of the GDP in the region has seen its growth expectation coming down because of the price of crude oil which moved from 120 dollars to 47 dollars lately.
The ECOWAS Commissioner for Microeconomic Policy & Economic Research opined that some of those issues even though already discussed in the previous Secretariat Meeting have been rehashed for deliberation in the present meeting.
“We have the institutional arrangements to put in place, including the competence observatory, the regional EPA funds and intensification of arrangements with all stakeholders. We are here also to discuss the issues that we are facing on ground, deriving from the different recommendations that we discussed in Ouagadougou,” he emphasized
“We are waiting on the Mixed Meeting of CET to dwell on the implementation of this CET that will help us to close the gap in the member – states that for one or two reasons have not started the implementation of the CET. We will approach the WTO about the EPA and take care of the EDF.”
Speaking on the levy and harmonisation of those budgets between UEMOA and ECOWAS, he indentified two major issues, adding that the commission is in the final stages of arrangement towards holding the roundtable discussion on the various aptitudes essential for improving the investment climate and industrial sector of the region.
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