Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Dauda Kigbu has assured D-8 member States that Nigeria would support the organisation to actualise it’s 2008-2018 road map in priority areas.
Mr. Kigbu stated this on Monday in Abuja in his opening remarks at the senior official preparatory meeting to the first Eight Developing Countries (D-8) Trade Ministers council meeting slated for June 25.
The priority areas according to him are trade, industry, agriculture, transportation and energy.
The Permanent Secretary who presided over the meeting informed the delegates the trade minister council meeting was expected to flag off the implementation of the D-8 the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA).
The D-8 PTA is an arrangement designed to boost trade and investment among member states namely; Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey.
He said PTA had capacity to boost trade and investment among member countries thereby reducing poverty and enriching the people.
PTA he said ``will enable the member countries to look at some of our list and see where tariff and non-tariff barriers exist and we can remove such to facilitate trade between members countries that may not ordinarily happened outside membership state.
He said that Nigeria was aware that the PTA was a mile stone achievement in the 16 years history of the Eight Developing (D-8) countries for economic cooperation.
He stated that the Agreement was so dear to Nigeria because it was in consonance with the Transformation Agenda of Mr Presidential aimed at the economy growth in particular, through non-oil exports.
He therefore enjoined the member countries at the meeting to work assiduously and deliberate on the under listed issues to realise the set goals of the 1st D-8 Trade Ministers Council meeting
In his remarks, the D-8 Secretary General Mr. Seyed Mousavi, said the meeting had fixed cut-off date of the implementation of PTA, to Nov. first to facilitate trade among the members countries as you know that trade is the backbone of our cooperation.
He commended the Government of Nigeria especially the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment for the warm reception accorded delegates to the meeting and the wonderful venue in the capital city of Abuja.
Mr. Mousavi said top on the agenda of the meeting were; consideration and adoption of the draft agenda, presentation of the current state of cut-off date implementation for the first installment of tariff reduction.
The objective of the senior officials meeting is to prepare technical inputs for the D-8 1st Trade Ministers Council meeting scheduled to hold tomorrow, Tuesday, June 25, 2013 at Transcorp Hilton Hotels, Abuja, Nigeria.
The main Objective of the Trade Ministers Council meeting is to deliberate and agree on the commencement date for the D-8 Preferential Trade Agreement implementation which was signed in Bali, Indonesia in 2006.
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