By John Oba
Abuja
Experts from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the European Union (EU) have stated that, the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) will not crash Nigeria’s local manufacturing sector, but rather improve it.
The Commissioner, Trade, Customs and Free Movement of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr. Laouall Chaibou, while declaring a media workshop on International Trade Agreements open at the ECOWAS conference hall yesterday said West Africa succeeded in negotiating a balanced trade agreement with a strong development dimension.
Chaibou who was represented by Dr. Gbenga Obideyi, said there are remedy measures available to nation to address areas of concern saying nations can improve their local content to compete favourably with products from any European countries.
On the two-day workshop, he said the objective of the workshop is to build capacity of the media in Nigeria in order to better understand and disseminate factual information on International Trade Agreement.
“Specifically, focus will be given to the West Africa – European Union EPA in view of the finalization of signatures and the beginning of implementation of the agreement.
Also speaking, the Deputy Head of the EU delegation, Mr Richard Young, said with Nigeria effort at diversifying it economic, the agreement will help to improve the economic, adding that since the major products Nigeria is importing from Europe are mostly not consumables.
He said the EPA will rather affect the local production positively since importation from Europe was not responsible for the high cost of items in Nigeria but lack of electricity and infrastructure.
He said if Nigeria signed the agreement it will benefit from the European Union export subsidy, saying a country like Nigeria trying to diversify should not indulge in protectionism.