Osinbajo lists areas Nigeria can benefit from AfCFTA
Vice President Yomi Osinbajo
Nigeria’s Vice President, Professor Yomi Osinbajo has listed some of the changes the country needs to make to benefit from the Africa Free Trade Area ( AfCFTA) agreement that became active in January this year.
According to blueprint.ng, he was speaking during the opening ceremony of the National Tourism and Transportation Summit (NTTS) which started yesterday in Abuja.
The Vice President, who was represented by the Director General of the Nigerian Tourism Development Commission (NTDC), Mr. Folorunsho Coker, said Nigeria needed to upgrade its facilities. He also said the country’s trade, business laws and regulations also needed to be upgraded. He also called for human capital development, funding and also policy sustainability.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Chairman, Organizing Committee of NTTS, Chief Abiodun Odusanwo, said the conference’s theme for this year was to focus on economic sustainability hence the choice of the theme “Tourism Transportation Connectivity: Leveraging the African Continental Free Trade Area.” He spoke further: “As you are aware, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa notes that the African Continental Free Trade Area goes beyond movements and investments across Africa. Moreover, it is the physical movement of people and goods that will serve as the principal evidence of the existence of free trade area.”
Odusanwo called on stakeholders in the transportation and tourism sectors to come up with feasible strategies harness and exploit to the fullest, potentials that African Continental Free Trade Area presents to encourage business people to make the required investments necessary to sustain economic growth and create the job opportunities desperately needed in the continent.