{"id":775,"date":"2018-06-29T10:56:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T10:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefreezoneblog.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/29\/nigerias-participation-key-to-success\/"},"modified":"2018-06-29T10:56:00","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T10:56:00","slug":"nigerias-participation-key-to-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefreezonechannel.com\/old\/nigerias-participation-key-to-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria\u2019s participation, key to success of African free trade agreement, says UN director"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-gNl-5j7Bq_I\/WzYP8a_R8FI\/AAAAAAAABkk\/Akd4vdUVDHoeurjbZehV5ydw24DDWCNHwCLcBGAs\/s1600\/AU-CFTA.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"1067\" data-original-width=\"1600\" height=\"266\" src=\"http:\/\/thefreezoneblog.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/AU-CFTA.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\nNigeria\u2019s participation is vital to the success of African<br \/>\nContinental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), Prof Dimitri Sanga, Head, UN<br \/>\nEconomic Commission for African (ECA), West Africa, has said.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\nSanga expressed the view in an interview with News Agency of<br \/>\nNigeria (NAN) on the sideline of the ongoing 21st&nbsp;Session<br \/>\nof the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts (ICE) for West Africa in Cotonou<br \/>\non Thursday.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\n\u201cNigeria is not only a key country in ECOWAS but also a key<br \/>\ncountry in Africa and in the world.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\n\u201cSo, not having Nigeria sign the African Continental Trade<br \/>\nAgreement is actually something that every African is worried about.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\n\u201cThe fact that Nigeria does not sign today does not mean that<br \/>\nNigeria will not sign tomorrow.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\n\u201cWe believe that Nigeria is looking at how it will affect its<br \/>\neconomy and people. After they know this, we believe that they will come on<br \/>\nboard,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\nGiving more reasons why Nigeria should sign, Sanga said it would<br \/>\nenable entrepreneurs in the country to have access to a market of over 1.2<br \/>\nbillion people.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\nHe also said the deal would give Africa one voice and a better<br \/>\nbargaining power when dealing with other countries in respect of trade.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\nSanga added that the deal would attract additional foreign<br \/>\ninvestments into the manufacturing sector, thereby creating avenue for better<br \/>\njob creation.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\nHe said ECA had submitted a report to ICE on the implication of<br \/>\nadmitting Morocco and Tunisia to the ECOWAS bloc.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\n\u201cLet me be clear, our report does not state whether or not<br \/>\nECOWAS should admit these North African countries.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\n\u201cIt only looks at trade issues that may arise, bearing in mind<br \/>\nthat there may be legal issues, security, social, migration and economic issues<br \/>\nlike trade, investment and so on.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\n\u201cWe only looked at trade issue which is a tip of the iceberg.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\n\u201cOur study which is based on trade issues only, we looked at the<br \/>\nimplications in terms of imports and exports from and outside ECOWAS and then<br \/>\nwe looked at how it would look like if ever Morocco joins ECOWAS.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\n\u201cThis means that whichever countries that have trade agreement<br \/>\nwith Morocco, will no longer be paying tariff.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\n\u201cThis is because Morocco will now be part of the Common External<br \/>\nTariff enjoyed by ECOWAS members,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\nSanga said the ECA study looked at sector by sector gain and<br \/>\nfound that there were areas where ECOWAS would have the upper hand and areas<br \/>\nwhere it would not.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\nHe said that for instance, Morocco had a strong manufacturing<br \/>\nsector, and joining the ECOWAS bloc would give it access to a market of about<br \/>\n350 million people.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\n\u201cFor Morocco it\u2019s a plus, especially for its entrepreneurs, who<br \/>\ndeal in agribusiness.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\n\u201cECOWAS countries have comparative advantage in agriculture and<br \/>\nextractive industry so they will find a ready market in Morocco as well,\u201d he<br \/>\nsaid.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\nThe 21st session of ICE21 for West Africa is taking place in<br \/>\nCotonou from June 27 to June 29 with the theme, \u2018Regional integration in West<br \/>\nAfrica: New challenges and prospects\u201d.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\nMorocco formally expressed its desire to join the West African<br \/>\nbloc in February 2017, citing strong, age-long ties with the sub-region as the<br \/>\nrationale for its decision.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\nTunisia also applied to become a full member of the bloc in<br \/>\nAugust 2017.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\nMeanwhile, Mauritania, a founding member of ECOWAS, which left<br \/>\nin 2000 to join the Arab Maghreb union, has applied for re-admission to the<br \/>\nbloc.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 6.8pt; text-align: justify;\">\nThe ECA, as a think-tank, found it appropriate to examine the<br \/>\npotential economic implications related to an eventual admission of Morocco, Tunisia<br \/>\nand Mauritania to ECOWAS.<\/div>\n<div style=\"height: 0px;\">\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">\nx<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nigeria\u2019s participation is vital to the success of African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), Prof Dimitri Sanga, Head, UN Economic Commission for African (ECA), West Africa, has said. Sanga expressed the view in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sideline of the ongoing 21st&nbsp;Session of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts (ICE) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-africa","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Nigeria\u2019s participation, key to success of African free trade agreement, says UN director - The Freezone Channel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thefreezonechannel.com\/old\/nigerias-participation-key-to-success\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nigeria\u2019s participation, key to success of African free trade agreement, says UN director - The Freezone Channel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nigeria\u2019s participation is vital to the success of African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), Prof Dimitri Sanga, Head, UN Economic Commission for African (ECA), West Africa, has said. 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