BY FELIX KASSIM
Stakeholders in the nation’s public and private sectors have supported the liberalisation of five priority service sectors in the country to meet the demands of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.
The Nigeria’s schedule of commitments on trade in services in the key sectors were reached after two-week engagements with experts and critical stakeholders.
The agreed commitments represent the aspirations of Nigerians in the priority sectors for liberalisation under the continental trade pact.
The Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiation (NOTN), which superintended the deliberations, listed the affected priority service sectors as professional business services, financial services, transport services, tourism services and communication services.
Speaking in Abuja on Monday during a joint private and public sector consultative forum to analyse and adopt draft specific commitments in the service sectors, the acting Director General of NOTN/Chief Trade Negotiator, Mr Victor Liman, said Nigeria’s position would be forwarded to ECOWAS for harmonisation into a single schedule for onward delivery to AfCFTA’s secretariat.
Liman, who said quality outcomes were harvested from the stakeholders’ engagements, posited that the collective commitments reached would ensure that Nigerians are protected from unfair trade practices as well as reposition the economy for better performance.
“This is very important for the country because of the fact that whatsoever we do at AfCFTA will affect our economy. It will affect GDP growth; it will affect job creation and affect productivity, infrastructures and competitiveness for the country.
“I think people need to understand it, engage with it and interrogate it and make sure they contribute their observations, thinking, position to what we do regarding trade negotiation,” he said.
While saying AfCFTA holds massive opportunity for Nigeria as it would boost intra-continental trade, the NOTN boss said with about 200 million people, the country stands a good chance to leverage on the trade pact to improve on the fortunes of the economy.
Liman, who commended President Muhammadu Buhari for ensuring the coming into force of NOTN, appealed to National Assembly to pass the agency’s Bill into an Act, even as he expressed delight over the continued support from the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo and the Minister of State, Amb. Mariam Katagum.
In a brief remark, representative of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Vice President, IndustriALL Global Union, Comrade Issa Aremu, commended NOTN for reaching out to relevant Nigerians in the processing of the trade in service commitments.
“Africa should not live on aid but we should trade with ourselves. This (consultation) is a very serious engagement, and not something we should take likely,” he said.
On her part, Senator Khairat Gwadebe of the Senator’s Forum, said the move by NOTN to engage operators of the affected sectors was a welcome development, adding that leveraging on trade will bring about positive economic development in the country.
A communiqué issued at the event hailed the inclusive consultative approach adopted by NOTN, noting, in particular, that the operation of the services policies rests on the private sector and the services under negotiation excludes services provided by governments.
The stakeholders, however, stressed that “it is important for the government to develop and implement policies particularly on infrastructure so that Nigeria can optimize the benefits of the regional and continental free trade agreements.”
Representatives of various professional groups and government agencies including; Nigerian Port Authority, NEXIM Bank, Nigeria Labour Congress, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, Maritime Union of Nigeria, Association of Small Scale Industrialists, among several others, attended the consultative forum.
