Nigeria’s trade agreements must be able to address concerns of local industrialists, as well as a factor in local realities to ensure the investments and trade, which have been described as twin-engine for developments play their key role in those trade agreements.
Industry experts are raising concern that over 550 trade agreements signed by Nigeria dating back to 1960 has not really provided Nigeria with the anticipated growth and development it ought to provide.
Ken Ukaoha, President of the National Association of Nigeria Traders (
NANT) told BusinessDay that, “First, we do not need too many Trade agreements to be competitive in Trade. Second, every Trade agreement that we must engage in must first consider our local realities such as The state of our Infrastructure, the status of our industries locally here.”
Ken also pointed out that, “Every trade agreement we enter into, must be that which employs the people, and must have the capacity to reduce poverty as well as the impact on our GDP as a nation. It must have the capacity to ensure that it does not distort our local policies.
“First stop the further signing of the Trade agreements, review all the Trade agreements that the Nigerian government has embarked on in the past, and let there be a roll call of those agreements since we cannot even find the repository of such agreements in the country, as findings reveal.”
The NANTS President also remarked that no country has ever developed only through Trade agreements, while advising the government to, “Adopt a model that sits you down, and know where it’s development strategy lies, as well as adopt a strategy that reviews it’s strategy periodically”
Nigeria it would be noted had commenced a review of all the Trade agreements it has entered into since 1960 which according to government authorities is geared towards ensuring harvesting of maximum benefits from such trade agreements.
Ambassador Chiedu Osakwe, who heads the Nigeria Office for Trade Negotiations informed BusinessDay that. “The review focuses on all our Trade and investments agreements from 1960 till date,”
The review Osakwe said is geared towards updating and modernising such agreements and Memorandum of Understanding, (MoU) to benefit the ailing economy, and create the much-needed jobs.
“It also dwells on reviews of all the memorandum of understanding that we have had on Trade and Investments; so that we can update, modernise them. It would also enable us to be sure that they carry net benefits, for the Nigerian economy, in terms of improved dynamics, and also in terms of job creation.”
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There have been calls for Nigeria to review its trade agreements and policies on concerns that over the years, they have not really yielded gains but have rather, worked to the country’s disadvantage.
Nigeria is said to have entered into well over 550 trade agreements over the years and signed more than 100 trade policies just in the last decade. But experts said they have made a little impact because the country lacks adequate capacity unlike its other partners in these agreements.
Some Industry watchers say Nigeria is not really doing business with the world but just trading.
Celestine Okeke, Lead Partner Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise, Advocacy Support Initiative told BusinessDay that the Federal government must also beef up its raise its project in the productive aspect of the economy.
He said, “Most of our Trade Policies are not really impacting on us positively, because we don’t have a competitive edge in our productivity. We must be a major producing nation to be able to compete favourably in the community of nations”
Analysts believe that localisation of various Agreements signed by the government will speed up Nigeria’s economic growth, and ensure more jobs are created in the economy to drive the needed growth and address concerns of rising unemployment in the country, which the Q3 2017 figure from the National Bureau of Statistics puts at 18.8%.
