Abuja - Nigeria — A three-day workshop to validate the report of a study that would assist West Africa determine which areas of its services sector to be liberalised during the ongoing negotiations of an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union for a free trade area of the two regions opened on Tuesday, 14th December 2010 in Accra. "Presently, the services sector contribute some 60 per cent of global output and account for 30 per cent of global employment and 20 per cent of trade", the ECOWAS Commissioner for Trade, Customs, Free Movement and Tourism, Alhaji Mohammed Daramy, said in a message to the participants.

Citing recent data from the World Bank to buttress the value of the sector to the economy, the Commissioner said in the message which was delivered by the Director of Trade for the Commission, Dr Gbenga Obideyi, that the sector has the potential to add six trillion dollars to the incomes of developing countries by 2015, which is four times more than the value from trade in goods for these countries. Both parties had agreed in 2007 to defer the negotiations for the service sector within the ongoing negotiation of their Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) until after the completion of the negotiation for trade in goods which was launched by both parties in 2004.

However, they agreed in principle that the EPA should contribute to promoting the overall efficiency of the economy and the competitiveness of the sector as well as improve the statistical system on services. The Commissioner said the potential contribution of the sector can be evaluated in terms of its value for increasing the GDP, employment generation and its contribution to stimulating other sectors particularly in health, education, water and sanitation. "West Africa therefore expects that the EPA text on services to be agreed by both parties will conform to the commitments made under the General Agreements on Trade in Services (GATS) and the guiding principles on which the EPA negotiations are based", the Commissioner said. The workshop would enable the participants, who are experts from the services sector of Member States, to review the recommendations of the report and enrich it so that it can be adopted as a regional document that would guide the negotiations for this sector. The region's decision to delay the negotiations had been informed by the challenges that bedevil the sector, including supply side constraints, limited access to financial services, skills deficiency, inefficient bureaucracy, the poor regulatory environment and legal institutions as well as the lack of a mechanism to cope with the risks associated with the sector.

The study, which was undertaken with the support of Tradecom, Brussels involved a country-by-country sectoral stocktaking and identification of priority areas for the consideration of the experts who are drawn from the public and private operators of the sector in the region. In her message to the workshop, Ghana's Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms. Hanna Tetteh, reminded the participants that they would have to take cognisance of the existing commitment of Member States under the Uruguay round and the fact that some of the Member States have undertaken the liberalization of certain aspects of their service sectors during the negotiation of this sector. The minister who was represented by the Director of External Trade of the ministry, Mr. Clement Nyaba, noted that the negotiation would have to contend with complex issues and promote the harmonization of the regulatory environment for this sector as part of the process.