AfCFTA: We’re Ready to Collaborate with FG, Says Okowa

Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa yesterday promised that his administration would partner the federal government towards domesticating the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement

He gave the assurance in a meeting with a federal government Trade delegation led by the Minister for Industry, Trade, and Investment, Mr. Niyi Adebayo, in Asaba.

He urged the federal government to quickly address the issues of the high cost of funds and poor power supply in the country.

He pointed out that there were bottlenecks associated with export trading and urged the federal government to work towards eliminating the constraints to encourage more traders.

The governor commended the minister for the enthusiasm in moving from state to state in ensuring that more states were involved in the trade agreement to boost export and increase internally generated revenue.

“It is of great interest to us and I am glad you are moving from state to state to sensitise them well enough and to enable us collectively take advantage of the agreement to boost trade in the country.

“There is no doubt that in preparing to ensure that more states get into the market, we will welcome this collaboration because it will enhance productivity once we have access to the market.

“We have tended to stay satisfied with crude oil without actually developing it in a way that it becomes more useful to us.

“We are glad that this relationship is coming at this time because it will actually stimulate and expand production thereby creating room for greater employment and people will make more money.

“When more and more people get employed there is less insecurity because when you take off more people from the unemployment market, you have fewer people available for criminal tendencies.

“We hope that the issue of the cost of fund and power supply will be addressed because it leads to a high cost of production and it will affect producers in such a way that their products cannot compete favourably,’’ he stated.

Okowa also called on the government to ensure that setbacks involved in exports were taken care of because many exporters were already discouraged in doing the business.

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

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