Port Harcourt business community endorses EU’s EPA
… as chamber boss says ‘I’m now a convert’
Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) proposal between the European Union (EU) and West African countries (ECOWAS) seems to find huge favour from the business community in the South-South and East zone of Nigeria with headquarters in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Participants at a seminar held in Port Harcourt on Monday, echoed a ‘yes’ to EPA and urged the Federal Government to move quickly and sign the deal.
The EPA envisions a deal for easy export of goods between the EU and ECOWAS and participation of their business people in each other’s economies. Most West African countries are said to have endorsed the pact but Nigeria is yet to sign on.
The EU ambassador to Nigeria and head of the EU delegation to the ECOWAS, Michel Arrion, has spent a lot of energy in recent months explaining the details and gains for Nigeria and West Africa, showing that the Africans have a lot to gain from EPA, contrary to heavy notions that it would lead to dumping of EU goods on Nigeria and West Africa.
The seminar on EU-Niger Delta/Rivers Investors’ Seminar, which was spearheaded by the Port Harcourt Chamber of Commerce (PHCCIMA) and Rivers Entrepreneurs & Investors Forum (REIF) helped the pro-EPA groups to explain the details and allay fears, thus leading to a vote of confidence on EPA and an appeal to the Federal Government of Nigeria to make haste and sign up.
PHCCIMA boss, Emi Membre-Otaji, said at the end of deliberations that he was an antagonist but now a convert of EPA.
He said: ‘Resistance to EPA is due to ignorance. We are now converted. The exclusive list shown to us (where the West Africans would not be joined by EU exporters) is huge.”
He said the fears of being squeezed in Africa’s primary market were not real since there is a huge exclusive list of no-go areas for Europeans under EPA.
Member-Otaji also appealed to businesses in the zone to reach for EPA and find what to do now, because export of non-oil items under EPA is the new way to go. “Oil boom is over for ever. Now is the time to act in non-oil areas. Out of the 20 richest countries in the world, only three are oil countries. You must not depend on oil to be rich.’
REIF president and a co-facilitator, Ibifri Bobmanuel, said through EPA, the Niger Delta and Nigeria would transform from a mere oil exporter to a non-oil exporting nation. He said it would amount to a crime for Nigeria to possess huge natural resources and opportunities only to sit idle and watch them perish and citizens wallow in poverty.
In an interview, he called on the federal government to quickly sign the EPA so as to unleash the power of Nigeria in the export market.
Earlier, Arrion had explained the huge advantages Nigeria had in exporting to EU nations but once again warned that Nigeria’s threat or competition was not Europe but countries like Pakistan, Mexico, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.
Experts pointed at the areas where Nigeria had huge advantage under EPA such as fashion, leather works, agric products, etc, but observed that in each area, Nigeria lacked support and power to compete, requiring help from the EU to improve the local products.
In a thought-provoking paper, the chairman, Economic Research Directorate, Sam Ekpot, urged Nigeria to ask the EU to help them in processing so they can meet global standards and compete instead of sitting down to complain. He pointed at sectors that have grown rapidly due to processing and involvement of outsides such as petrochemicals, fertilizer, agric, etc.
An expert from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Asaju Daramola, said agric is the future of export and that youth participation through entrepreneurship and mechanization is the way out, but observed that 98 per cent of food on our tables is from the small holder farmers.
Speaking on garments, Grace Oreofe Akinkugbe, said Nigeria was busy pursuing fortunes in the made to measure sector of the garment industry instead of the ready made sector that she said controlled over 95 per cent of the global market.
The seminar agreed that the best way is to join EPA and pursue processing of raw materials and earn huge foreign exchange as a shift from oil and gas.