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Delta ready to collaborate with FG on AfCFTA, says Okowa

By Monday Osayande, Asaba
30 June 2021   |   3:05 am
Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, yesterday, disclosed that his administration would partner with the Federal Government to domesticate the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.

Okowa. Photo/facebook/IAOkowa

Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, yesterday, disclosed that his administration would partner with the Federal Government to domesticate the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.

He stated this in a meeting with the Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment, Niyi Adebayo, who led a Federal Government trade delegation to Asaba, the state capital.

Okowa urged the Federal Government to urgently address the high cost of funds and poor power supply in the country, noting that there were bottlenecks associated with export trade and urged the Federal Government to work towards eliminating the constraints to encourage more traders.

The governor commended Adebayo for traversing the entire country to ensure that more states were involved in the trade agreement to boost export and increase internally generated revenue.

Okowa also urged the Federal Government to ensure that setbacks to exports were taken care of because several exporters were already discouraged in doing the business.

Earlier, Adebayo, who was represented by the Director of Trade in the ministry, Aliyu Abubakar, said the AfCFTA agreement sought to create a single market for made-in-Africa goods with a population of 1.2 billion people and combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $3.4 trillion.

He said the AfCFTA would eliminate tariffs on 90 per cent of tradable goods over five years for developing countries and 10 years for least developed countries.

Adebayo said the agreement would also expand market access for Nigerian exporters of goods and services, which would boost production, growth and jobs creation in the country.

He added that the AfCFTA would also stimulate Nigeria’s export diversification by providing access to Nigeria products and services to the African market, which currently sourced 85 per cent of imports from outside the continent.

Presenting a progress report of the National Action Committee on AfCFTA, Secretary of the Committee and Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Public Sector Matters, Francis Anatogu, said the committee had developed a National Implementation Plan for inputs from public and private sector stakeholders.

He further stated that domestication of the AfCFTA, border regulations enforcement and rules of origin enforcement, trade facilitation and ease-of-doing-business, as well as improvement of quality infrastructure, were some of the progress so far made.

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