ECOWAS Set To Promote
Regional Trade
Dr.
Mohammed Ibn Chambas, President of ECOWAS Commission has said
result-oriented arrangements had been put in place to promote
trade among member states in Year 2010.
Dr. Chambas, in an interview in Lagos, said that the
arrangements
would remove the constraints on movement of goods and people
among the member states.
“The commission this year will ensure that the administrative
bottlenecks in trade among member states are removed from all
the borders for free movements,” he said.
Movement of persons and goods
He said a lot of programmes were being worked out to create a
platform to facilitate free movement of persons, goods and
services at zero tariffs.
The commission chief said plans had been concluded for the
creation of more Free Trade Zones, Customs Union and Common
Processing Single Border posts across the region.
Trading procedures
He also said there were plans to simplify the trading
procedures, documentation and to computerise trading activities
to facilitate easy processing in the common frontiers.
Chambas said there plans to educate Customs and Immigrations
officials and other security agencies at the various frontiers
on how to relate with the businessmen, traders and travellers.
“Our frontiers should be points of integration and not points
of extortions, harassment and division which these points have
been turned into…Member states have the responsibility of
ensuring that they engage in sufficient education of its
business people and law enforcement agencies on the need to shun
shady deals at the borders,’’ he said.
The ECOWAS commission president said trade among the member
states was being hindered by lack of infrastructure, urging the
governments in the region to embark on development of
infrastructure.
NAN/Yinka
