ECOWAS members prepare for world trade conference
Members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) converged on Accra for a preparatory meeting to deliberate on strategies the region could adopt towards the development of regional positions for the ninth World Trade Orgnaisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference, otherwise dubbed as MC9.
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The aim of the preparatory meeting was to discuss issues of particular interest to West African countries for articulation at the conference.
The meeting also sought to adopt a common regional position to feed into both the WTO conference and the ACP preparatory processes.
The two-day meeting in Accra assisted ECOWAS member states in strengthening the role of West Africa to promote trade among themselves and with the wider international community, while addressing their own development aspirations of promoting both poverty reduction and sustainable development.
The meeting assembled senior officials, diplomats and other stakeholders from ECOWAS member states and the ECOWAS Commission to discuss the issues germane to the region’s preparation for MC9 and help the delegates co-ordinate West African regional positions on a number of relevant WTO issues, including trade facilitation, agriculture and special and differential treatment for ECOWAS countries.
It was held with the support of the ACP MTS Programme, which is a European Union-African Caribbean Pacific funded initiative that supports the integration of African, Caribbean and Pacific countries into the Multilateral Trading System.
The MC9 in Bali, Indonesia (December 3-6, 2013) and the potential conclusion of the Doha Round are of particular interest to ECOWAS countires as they face strong challenges in their trade development agenda.
ECOWAS countries’ general reliance on low value-added commodity exports, lack of economies of scale and poor trade infrastructure all contribute to a systemic lack of export competiveness.
