Director-General of World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, has situated the centrality of trade in Nigeria’s quick economic recovery if the populous black nation could add more value to its products and improve infrastructure for competitiveness.
She urged the country to step up action on the agricultural value chain, information technology, fisheries among others, noting sadly, that Nigeria’s stakes in global and continental were 0.33 and 19 per cents.
Describing the statistics as a small fraction of what the country could achieve during separate courtesy visits to President Muhammadu Buhari; Ministers of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed; Industry Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo; and Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama; yesterday in Abuja, the WTO DG noted:
“Nigeria ranks 103 out of 167 countries in logistics and that means we have a long way to go. For me, that is a potential area we can invest to improve our logistics so we can take advantage of trade within the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA).”