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The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has urged the governments of the West African sub-region to work towards removing obstacles that could impede regional economic development.
Such barriers that need to be addressed to attain robust trade relations in the sub-region, include inefficient transportation and communication, hindrances at the borders, currency differences, differences in law and legal interpretations as well as language problems.
In a keynote address at the opening of a two-week ceremony of a Regional Course on West Africa's International Trade, Taxes and policies organised by the West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM) in collaboration with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Abuja yesterday, the CBN boss said the issue of trade remained critical for the sub-region because of its potential for bringing about political, social and economic development for the sub-region.
The objective of the course, according to the Director-General of WAIFEM, Prof. Akpan H. Ekpo, is to provide participants drawn from five West African states of Ghana, The Gambia, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the host country, Nigeria with the opportunity of understanding pertinent issues related to international trade, taxes and policies in West Africa.
"Therefore, the focus will be on benchmarking with best practices regarding international trade, taxes and policies, hoping that the course would provide the needed platform for building capacity in the formulation and implementation of good and effective external trade policies to yield maximum benefits to the regional countries," he said.
He said that some of the themes that would be discussed in the course of the training would include an overview of multilateral trade policy; WTO and regional trade agreement; regional integration; international trade economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa; international trade in West Africa, challenges and prospects; regional trade agreements in West Africa and modelling international trade and commercial policy.
Others include promoting regional common market and investment climate in West Africa; ECOWAS and Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) and West Africa as well as tariff harmonisation, government revenue and economic integration in West Africa.
Sanusi, whose speech was delivered by Dr. Okorie Uchendu, the director, Monetary Policy Department (MPD) of the CBN, reminded participants that the key elements of achieving an efficient trade policy included trade liberalisation, streamlining the import regime, reduction of red tape, ensuring transparent customs procedures as well as replacing qualitative restrictions with tariffs.
Other factors he listed included avoiding extreme variation in tariff rates and excessively high rates of effective protection, allowing exporters duty-free access to imported inputs and refraining from anti-export bias.
According to the CBN boss, "on trade liberalisation, it is generally agreed that it leads to better economic performance as a result of improvement in resource allocation as partners gain from producing goods and services in which they have comparative advantage.
"It is also important that we embrace the multilateral trading system and enhance our participation in negotiations, because we have no alternative but to be involved, given the importance of international trade to our economies. In sum, developing economies, despite the cost and difficulties involved, must participate in international trade negotiations to pursue their commercial interests and protect their existing rights.
Source: Sanusi, others chart ways for integration in W'Africa (http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47466:sanusi-others-chart-ways-for-integration-in-wafrica&catid=1:national&Itemid=559)