SAFAR 26 1431 A.H.
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 10, 2010.
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Nigeria calls for UNDP's assistance on trade policy
Chief Achike Udenwa, Minister of Commerce and Industry, yesterday called on the United Nations Development Programme (UNPD) to assist the country to develop an internationally competitive trade policy.
The minister made this call in Abuja when a team from UNDP headquarters in Geneva paid him a courtesy call in response to the ministry’s request for assistance on trade capacity building.
``The assistance is necessary because the country’s economy has also been affected by the global recession and the free market economy has also come with some distortions to developing economies,’’ he said.
He said the distortions caused by lack of infrastructure and of cheap funding made developing countries which Nigeria belonged to be uncompetitive.
``Today for us to participate in trade with other countries, we have to be competitive but we are not because of the supply end constraints of lack of infrastructure,’’ he said.
Udenwa described the situation as a dilemma, which Nigeria had found itself in spite of all its abundant resources.
``Nigeria as a developing country, should be competing with other developing countries such as India, Malaysia and Brazil.
``We think that UNDP can be of assistance to us to talk to other stakeholders in the private sector to fashion out trade policy in collaboration with other developing partners for the country,’’ he said.
The minister also appealed to developed countries to come to the aid of Nigeria, as the ``Aid for Trade’’ for developing economies had not done much to help countries.
The leader of the UNDP team, Mr David Luke, said the team came to Nigeria in response to the invitation of the ministry to find out how the requests could be made more concrete.
``We are very impressed with the leadership of the ministry and the interventions at the last meeting in Geneva on trade issues not only on behalf of Nigeria but for the whole of Africa.
``We hope to reach good understanding on how to take forward this important trade issues,’’ he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the ministry is also collaborating with other developing partners such as the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) on industrial policy and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on trade policy.
The UNDP team will also be holding consultations with private sector operators and other stakeholders.
