The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Niyi Adebayo, has emphasised the importance of public/private partnership in driving Nigeria’s success in the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
   
Adebayo made the assertion at the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators of Nigeria’s (ICSAN) 45th annual conference in Lagos.
   
The minister reiterated his commitment to ensuring that the private sector took its rightful place as a key driver of AfCFTA.
   
He expressed the ministry’s interest in collaborating with the institute to enthrone principles of ethics and corporate governance, which he said were germane to the success of the AfCFTA.
   
Professor of International Law, Akin Oyebode, said that the future of the continent was largely dependent on the success of the AfCFTA.
   
He, however, noted that AfCFTA, since its take-off, had not secured the requisite traction.
   
Oyebode attributed the development to the similarity in the goods and products of the different African countries not availing the complementarity which diversity would have facilitated.
   
He said that the inability of many of the state parties to transform the Act into their domestic laws had not helped matters.
 
Director, Policy, Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA), Dr Oyesola Oyekunle, stressed that closing Nigeria’s infrastructure gap would not only boost economic growth but also give the country a competitive advantage under the AfCFTA.
   
Oyekunle noted that Nigeria’s growing infrastructure deficit remained a major concern among economic experts because the poor infrastructure was one of the biggest impediments to smooth business operation, and also limits capital inflows into the country.
   
He called for the strengthening of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission with human and material resources and its legal framework to enable it to perform maximally in the realisation of the objectives for which it was set up.