11th Steering committee meeting on Promoting West African Trade Integration 23rd October , 2018

The 11th Steering committee meeting on promoting West African Trade  held on the 23rd of October 2018, in Abuja Nigeria.

This event had in attendance representative of the German Government, European union, Trade and customs expert from both the French and Chinese government as well as Expert from the Ecowas commission on Trade , customs and free movement .

An Implementation report on the Activities of WATIP for the 2018, was reviewed as well as the various challenges encountered by the project during the year. Summary of the achievements / indicators Between October 2014 – September 2018 were considered in-detail, implementation and progress report  for a one year period was presented by the GIZ team.

One of the Key achievements for the WATIP Project was  the finalization of the Customs code and its adoption by the ECOWAS Heads of States in 2017.

Secondly, the project was able to present the ETLS (Ecowas Trade Liberalization Scheme) regulation texts to the Council of Finance Minister in October 2017.

Thirdly, various  ETLS related training were organized; to sensitize businesses on the Benefits of ETLS,  increased number of approved product under the ETLS  and the  successful completion of the ETLS impact study

More so, Opportunities were given to  expert to share knowledge on lessons learnt during the the implementation of the WATIP I project at different levels so to enhance the effective and efficient execution of the WATIP II project.