The Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement AfCFTA seeks to eliminate 90% of tariffs and reduce Non-Tariff barriers to enhance trade across the continent.
The Senoir Special Assistant to the President on Public Sector Matters and Secretary of the National Action Committee (NAC) on AfCFTA, Mr Francis Anatogu disclosed this during a press briefing on the Subnational Strategy Workshop week holding this week.
He said the workshop is aimed at working with states and local government to achieve defined strategies for AfCFTA.
According to Mr Analogu, “for us to be able to take advantage of the AfCFTA we need to build capacity, we need to produce what we will export. These human and natural resources reside in the States, so building the Eco systems, building capacity, building on infrastructure will need to happen at the state level. This programme is about helping states to find their niche in Africa’s export market, we cannot do this without improving productivity, without growing the skill of our people or developing our people to serve the hall of Africa.”
Mr Analogu added that with AfCFTA, Nigeria is moving from serving a market of 200 million people to a market of 1.2billion people.
“Over the next three days the NAC-AfCFTA will create a platform to engage and interact with State Technical Working Groups expected to be in attendance,” he added.
Director General, Nigeria Governors Forum Secretariat, Mr Asishana Okauru emphasized the need to involve the subnational level into the free trade zone in order to record progress.
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