By Williams Anuku Abuja
Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on Monday, told President Muhammadu Buhari in plain terms that Nigeria must devise ways of adding value to its product and services in order to compete favourably at the international trade arena.
Okonjo-Iweala who met with President Muhammadu Buhari as part of her tour of countries that supported her bid to clinch the international job at the WTO, also told the President that Nigeria has bright prospects and opportunities at the global scene but must take steps to exploit them.
She thanked President Buhari for the support she received from her own country in the race for the position, noting that the administration wrote hundreds of letters, called up hundreds of world leaders to galvanize support.
“Without your personal and direct intervention, it may not have worked. The people of Nigeria also supported me massively. The youths were wonderful, always encouraging, backing me up on social media.
“Mr President, the world recognizes what you have done. Since its establishment, only men have led the WTO. Now, a woman has emerged for the first time, and she’s a Nigerian. We are so honoured,” Dr Okonjo-Iweala said.
She apprised the President of the opportunities for Nigeria in the global organization, as well as the challenges, stressing that “WTO will do more to help Nigeria, but we need to add value to our products in order to trade more. We should exploit all the opportunities in front of us.”
She added that the support and leadership of President Buhari will help her a lot in her position as DG.
Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala assumed office on March 1, 2021 as the first female DG of the World Trade Organization.
Earlier, Buhari said despite the robust support Nigeria gave to her candidacy for the position, she also earned it. “We are happy you made it, but you earned it with your record of performance both at home and abroad.”
The President said Dr Okonjo-Iweala was putting Nigeria more on the world map, “and I congratulate you, as well as the country. I know you will represent us so well.”
President Buhari lauded Nigerian women once again, pointing to key positions they hold like Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, and many others. He said the same way, the government would encourage the youths, “so that they can be ready for the challenges of the future.”
At a separate forum with State House Correspondents, Okonjo-Iweala gave more insights into what trading entails at the global scene.
According to her, developing economies can leverage on other economies of the world, especially the smaller and vulnerable or island economies, those which are not able to produce products need free trade because they import a lot of what they need like the Caribbeans.
Explaining further, she said if there were no free trade, these are small islands or vulnerable countries, they can’t grow much, hence they cannot drive without free trade. But there are others like Nigeria that have the ability to produce and manufacture their own products.
“Of course, they with their provisions if you need for a period of time to be able to manufacture and produce their certain principles of special and differential treatment. That’s what it is called at the WTO that you can join. This allows the developing country to have a long time period to implement some of the WTOL agreements.
“Giving it a chance to what it is called policy space to be able to develop whatever industrial manufacturing wants to develop. Of course, this is not forever because eventually, you need to open it up to the competition. Otherwise, you’ll be developing inefficient industries. But there is that provision that is there for the developing countries to have access to that.
“So, I think we then don’t eat your principles who can do that. We also have you know, the subsidies and counterfeiting measures that women allow if you feel that. Other countries don’t think cheap products into your market, you can also draw that to put countervailing duties to make sure that you know, this doesn’t happen, sometimes the cheapest way.
“Nigeria is actively participating right now in some negotiations that are ongoing to reach an agreement on how we can better support micro medium as small letter prices inside colonies in Africa, many of them have informal enterprises are very small enterprises. So if we can do that and pull these areas is much analyzed than student areas will also be open with anybody and that’s one of the things that is attractive to me at the WTO.
“On the challenges of ideal leverage on the AFCTFA without the installation. I think Nigeria is already starting, a percentage of Africa is from Nigeria. It’s largely African economy, which is about 25%, so we should produce and exceed So we’re not doing so badly.
“I believe that Nigeria can compete within the 1.3billion people market that we have in Africa. And if we do, that is export much into the continent, I think we should able to try more. I don’t know about the inside. You know competition after that period in which you’ve been able to develop your industry, which is available to us and that’s what you’re doing.
“We should be able to compete with other countries and even out-compete them in certain areas. We are doing that already and we should build on that. We have a vast potential for instance a strong demand from fashion on the continent, that is what we’ve not yet managed to harness.
“Can you imagine what could happen if Nigeria was able to do that? So, I don’t know about being stifled. I think we can leverage what we have now within the economy, especially the talent we have to produce more and export more. Do we have to improve our infrastructure to make us more competitive, absolutely, “Okonjo-Iweala stated?