FG Inaugurates Committee To Review Trade Policy

The Federal Government has inaugurated a committee to review Nigeria’s trade policy as part of efforts to clearly map out strategies to address various trade imbalances facing the country.

Dr Olusegun Aganga, the Minister of Trade and Investment, who inaugurated the committee in Abuja on Wednesday, said Nigeria required a sound trade policy that was business friendly.

Agangasaid this would enable the country to realise its objectives of growing the economy and attracting substantial local and foreign investment as well as increasing its share of the global trade in the next four years.

According to him, the policy must also be compliant with Nigeria’s commitment to multilateral, regional and bilateral trade agreements.

“The new trade policy should be able to drive the transformation agenda and not just be a mere input to its realisation.

“It should also be able to leverage on competitive advantage, strengthen the country’s economy and reposition it as an effective player in the international training environment,’’ Aganga said.

He said that the trade policy when fully operational would play a vital role in articulating Nigeria’s economic interests, which would reflect in trade negotiations and also contribute to strengthening the capacity of the nation to participate effectively and benefit from bilateral trade.

Agangasaid “the broader objectives of this exercise is to develop a sound and comprehensive trade policy that will drive Nigeria’s trade and investment development and assist in the implementation of supporting domestic policies.’’ He added that it would further “ enhance and facilitate trade towards attaining her vision of becoming one of the 20 largest economies by year 2020’’.

The minister said that the work of the committee was challenging and that its membership had been carefully chosen to ensure the success of the exercise.

The committee, chaired by Prof. Ade Oyejide from the University of Ibadan, is to examine Nigeria’s trade policy published in 2002 with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade review documents of Nigeria for 2005.

Other terms of reference are to identify specific gaps that need to be addressed by the new trade policy, including the reasons why the previous review exercise had not achieved the previous results.

Others include to assess the impact of the previous trade and investment policies on sectoral industrial production and productive capacity on trade and how development in the two sectors have affected poverty, employment and productivity, among others. The committee has three weeks to submit its report.

Responding on behalf of other members, Oyejide assured the minister that they would do a thorough job and thanked him for giving them the opportunity to serve.