- AfCFTA May Turn Nigeria to Dumping Ground for African Products
The recently signed African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) may not enhance local productivity as widely projected given Nigeria’s challenges.
Nigeria’s manufacturing production to GDP ratio remained low at 9.18 percent. However, with import products accounting for more than 70 percent of the inputs. Nigeria is largely an assembly ground for most of the locally produced products.
Poor power supply, high foreign exchange rate and interest rates are some of the challenges that will hurt Nigeria’s competitiveness going forward.
AfCFTA won’t solve Nigerian trade and economic issues rather it would turn Nigeria to dumping ground for other African products.
Nigeria’s issues go beyond the open border. Proper market structure combined with effective monetary and fiscal policies needed to deepen trade and broaden productivity is lacking and remain our main challenge.
Opening border to African products without empowering local players to compete effectively will hurt local production and once again push Nigerian consumers to foreign counterparts with better products.
Free trade Agreement without something to trade is meaningless and solve none of our current issues.
It is the same with the proposed bank recapitalisation, strengthening banks’ ability to withstand financial stress and attain global standard won’t increase banks’ deposits until earnings/wages reflect the current economic situation.
Culled from my WhatsApp status posts.