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The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has disclosed that the border closure by the federal government has caused decline in the volume of trade within Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) from 12 per cent to 7 per cent.
The Acting Director General of MAN, Ambrose Oruche, made this known during a chat .
According to him, the border closure has brought disruption in trading between Nigeria and other ECOWAS countries.
Oruche explained that the border closure has severely affected the shipment of Nigerian manufactured goods to the ECOWAS countries both by lands and seaports as Nigerian goods now face rejections in neighbouring countries as acrimony and retaliation has set in among trade partners in ECOWAS over Federal Government’s refusal to re-open the borders.
According to him, it is unacceptable for the Federal Government to shut down the borders in the name of smuggling of agric produce and ammunition at the detriment of trade promotion and facilitation along the ECOWAS trade corridor.
He noted that there is no country in the world where smuggling of products does not take place globally but it is the responsibility of government to control the illicit smuggling like other countries are doing without shutting down the borders in a bid to encourage trading among states.
Already, this has sent danger signals to other ECOWAS countries in the region because the border closure is taking more period than expected which is a breach of international trade and treaties of which Nigeria is a signatory to.
Oruche said: “What we are saying is let us find a way of encouraging trade among ourselves in this Sub Saharan Africa. We are saying that trade among ECOWAS countries is very low, it’s just 11 per cent or 12 per cent in terms of trade volume in the region and then, with this border closure, it has brought it to 7 per cent. So, what we are saying is that, we need to increase trade volume among ourselves rather than discouraging it. This border closure will hinder us from trading among ourselves that is the submission of my organisation to this issue of border closure.”
On the survey carried out by MAN on the partial border closure, the MAN boss said: “We did a survey of our members’ sector by sector. Permit me to tell you the few results of the summary of the survey we did. Food, beverages and tobacco had negative side that they encountered in the exporting of their products to the ECOWAS countries. “It has been a huge challenge to them and many of them are scaling down jobs, reducing costs because the aspect of the export market is no longer feasible, attractive and profitable.
