Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Herbert Krapa took part on Friday in Lome, in a joint high-level meeting on the fluidity of trade along the Abidjan-Lagos corridor.
The event, organized by the Secretariat of the Zlecaf, brought together the ministers in charge of trade and the directors of customs from the five countries concerned (Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo).
For those in charge, it was notably a question of working on the challenges faced by traders and other economic actors along this road axis, some 1,028 km long, which must link the capitals of these States, but also and above all of making decisions suitable to implement for the success of this project.
“The meeting in Lomé is a first step in the integration of trade facilitation at the regional level to ensure that the benefits are for our countries, SMEs, transit operators and populations”, indicated during the work leader of the Free Trade Area, Wamkele Mene.
At the end of the meeting, the Ghanaian Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Herbert Krapa noted that “Ghana remains fully committed to the integration agenda for the good of our people”.
A memorandum of understanding supported by the UNDP was, in this sense, concluded at the end of the meeting, with the aim of strengthening the management of the process.
A flagship project of the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor transports approximately 44 million people and 130 million tonnes of goods each year.
With the upcoming signing of trade facilitation agreements, it is estimated that more than 65 million people are used annually.
Source: AfrikPage