Economic partnership agreement threatens Nigeria, EU trade relations

Nigeria may soon lose the special treatment on issues of trade with Europe should it continue to drag its feet on the signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the Economic Communities of West Africa States (ECOWAS) and the European Union (EU).

Head of Trade and Econom­ic Section, EU delegation to Ni­geria and ECOWAS, Mr. Fillipo Amato gave this hint in Abuja on Wednesday during a media workshop on EPA.

 

Amato, who said coun­tries from the region that fail to sign the agreement before October 1, 2016, would cease to have preferential treatment from Europe on issues of trade, allayed fears that the agreement would put the Nigerian indus­trial sector into jeopardy.

 

“I’m surprise about the argu­ment and debates over the EPA agreement. All the fears that the market would be flooded are unfounded,” he said.

 

“We don’t see Africa as a dumping ground. Our interest is to promote African indus­tries and economic integration, and is not about protecting our industries,” the EU envoy add­ed.

 

On his part, the Director of Trade, ECOWAS Commission, Dr Gbenga Obideyi, dispelled rumours making the round that there was a hidden agenda on the EPA agreement, and called on Nigeria to leverage on it to shore up the level of interna­tional trade and development.

 

According to Obideyi, out of the 16 countries in the West Af­rica region, only Nigeria, Gam­bia and Mauritania are yet to sign the agreement.

 

In the same vein, ECOWAS Commission’s Programme Of­ficer, Multilateral Trade, Mr Ko­lawole Sofola, who also threw more light on EPA, said coun­tries in the region stand to ben­efit 6.5 billion Euro as grant to develop infrastructures within the first five years (2015-2020) of the agreement.

 

According to Sofola, out of the total grant, Nigeria would get a large chunk of 2.8 billion Euro to finance some of its pri­ority projects.