By Felix Khanoba
Nigeria will soon roll out a national trade negotiation template that will guide the country in commercial deals with other countries.
Director General of Nigeria Trade Negotiations Office/Chief Trade Negotiator, Yonov Agah, made this known in Abuja on Friday at the closing ceremony of National Intensive Trade Negotiations Simulation Skills Course.
According to the NOTN boss, the template, which is expected to be ready in June 2022, would focus on Nigeria’s priorities in trade negotiations.
“The template is going to tell us Nigeria’s development objectives, Nigeria’s expectations from any negotiation; whether it is in UN, EU, UK or wherever.
“What we expect across different areas; whether in goods, trade in goods, trade in services, intellectual property, investments, business cooperation. We are going to highlight all these-article by article on what we need, so that when we are negotiating with a country, we put on the table Nigeria’s expectations,” he said.
On the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) deal, Agah said the full swing of the continental trade pact would be gradual, adding that while trading under the deal politically started on 1 January, 2021, the pact was still confronted with issue of rules of origin, elements of Customs cooperation,among others.
Speaking on the workshop, which was organized by NOTN in collaboration with ODI & UKaid for Nigerians selected from government bodies, organised private sector and civil society groups, Agah said the move was designed to ensure Nigerians learn the basic rudiments of good trade deal.
“Our focus with courses like this is to ensure Nigeria get the very good (trade) deals that will help the country. The issues are very complex and also very difficult to understand and we believe bringing stakeholders to the room to understand the issue will better educate us on how best we can stay together and help each other.
“From the workshop, many of you would observe is about consultations; whether before negotiation, during negotiation and after negotiation,” he said.
On his part, representative of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Oluwasegun Osodipe, expressed delight over the workshop, saying it was the right step in the right direction.
“It is a deliberate step to reset the national renegotiation mandate because you see an intentional step that all stakeholders are carried along in the process of preparation, upscaling skills in preparation for either regional or multilateral negotiations,” Oluwasegun, who is the director, Research and Advocacy in MAN, said.
