Committee adopts report on accelerating intra-African trade
By Andrew Allimadi, Communication Officer, ECA
25 March 2004

The Committee on Trade and Regional Integration concluded its meeting Friday 25 March with the adoption of a report, which will be submitted to African Ministers of Trade at their next scheduled meeting in Cairo, Egypt at the end of May. The Executive Secretary of ECA, Mr. K.Y. Amoako, attended part of the closing session. In his remarks, Mr Amoako told members of the committee that ECA considered its work very important as increasing trade through regional integration is an important avenue for growth and poverty reduction in Africa.

He informed the committee on continuing work in ECA to design the second generation of poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) for Africa, and said: “In this work, I am constantly pushing the issue of trade.”

He also paid tribute to the work of ECA’s Trade and Regional Integration Division (TRID), which he said is producing high-quality research outputs and effectively supporting African trade negotiators, both in national capitals and in Geneva, where World Trade Organization is based.

In his closing remarks, Hakim Ben Hammouda, director of ECA TRID paid tribute to Ambassador Nathan Irumba of Uganda for the skilful manner in which he steered discussions. He thanked the African Union, Regional Economic Communities and other UN agencies for their active participation, saying it would help to ensure that Africa’s voice is heard in the international trade negotiations.

The Chairman of the committee meeting, Ambassador Nathan Irumba of Uganda, also thanked ECA for organizing a very successful meeting and for producing several high quality research papers for discussion. He expressed his thanks to the ECA Executive Secretary for opening an advisory office in Geneva, which he described as critical for supporting African negotiators in the modalities phase of WTO talks.