Promoters of the African Continental Free Trade have said that the agreement has the potential to grow trade value in Nigeria to the tune of $12bn between 2023 and 2027.
In a manual tagged, ‘Strategy Implementation Framework’ made available to journalists on Wednesday during the Nigeria AfCFTA implementation strategy validation held in Lagos, said that the agreement could also reduce trade cost by 20 per cent by facilitating the enactment of an omnibus bill on the AfCFTA.
The manual also said that the agreement would execute trade facilitation and infrastructure programmes to improve competitiveness.
“AfCFTA will grow trade value to $12bn, reduce trade cost by 20 per cent by facilitating enactment of an omnibus bill on AfCFTA. It will execute trade facilitations and infrastructure programmes to improve competitiveness. It will also grow productive capacity and export of arrowhead products and services.”
The manual also described plans to grow productive capacity of Nigeria’s top imports to protect the domestic market, noting that AfCFTA was poised to capture 10 per cent of its global imports to double Nigeria’s export revenue by 2035.
Speaking at the event, the Senior Adviser, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Adeyinka Adeyemi, in his opening address, said that the principle for success lay in strategy.
“Nigeria is not the only country. We have done this with a couple of countries in Africa. The way it works is that the country comes to us. You ask for support not because you do not have expertise within your country. As a matter of fact, the first document I saw on this was an impact assessment study done by Nigeria itself using Nigerian experts. What value are we bringing to the table? Without a national strategy customised for your country, then there is a problem.”
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