Mohammed Habibu Tijani
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Mohammed Habibu Tijani, has encouraged Ghanaian businesses to take advantage of the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS), which allows products originating from member states to be exported free of custom duties and other charges within the sub-region to promote business growth.
Speaking at the Africa Business Awards ceremony recently organised under the auspices of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration recently in Accra, Mr Tijani noted: “I acknowledge that bottlenecks still exist, in spite of our quest to intra-Africa trade and investments. The different levels of commitment and implementation of the protocols on trade and investment by individual member state is a case in point. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration continues to engage the ECOWAS Commission and other member states with a view to eliminating these impediments to boost trading among ourselves.”
He expressed the hope that the challenges notwithstanding, Ghanaian business operators would be motivated to expand and take advantage of the growing market on African continent.
“Unfortunately, when it comes to intra-African trade, generally, the statistics do not look appealing. Trade among African countries currently stands at about 16 percent, compared to 19 percent intra- regional trade in Latin America, 51 percent in Asia, 54 percent in North America and 70 percent in Europe,” he said.
He stressed the need to work towards boosting trade among African countries in order to increase the potential for achieving sustainable economic development and deepening integration on the continent.
To achieve this, negotiations had been ongoing among member states of the AU since 2012 when the African Union conceived the idea to establish a Continental Free Trade Area, which was finalised in March, 2018 with the launch of the African Continental Free Trade Area at the 10th Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union in Kigali, Rwanda.
It’s one of the flagship projects of the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
As part of the strategies for boosting intra-Africa trade, investment and regional integration, Ghana announced a major foreign policy decision in 2016 to allow all citizens of African member states to be granted visa-on-arrival in Ghana with effect from July 2016.
This, Mr. Tijani said, was in addition to the free movement of persons, goods and service already enjoyed by citizens of ECOWAS member countries under the protocol on Free Movement, Right of Residence and Establishment.
BY Samuel Boadi