Ouagadougou — The Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is holing a high level meeting of technical meeting of the Directors General of Customs and Trade as well as the Directors of the ECOWAS National Unit of Burkina Faso and Nigeria on the assessment of the situation of the closure of land borders of Nigeria to goods.

The two-day meeting which opens today, February 13, 2020 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso will assess the situation of the closure of the land borders of Nigeria to goods, pursue the overall objective to reach an acceptable solution by all parties and propose actions for the rapid reopening of the land borders of Nigeria for the free movement of goods.

In her welcome address, Madame Bernadette Marie Conrad Nikiema, Director of the ECOWAS National Office of Burkina Faso, underscored the importance of the meeting for integration in the region.

“Your presence at this meeting testifies your constantly renewed commitment to make our region a truly integrated sub-region; economically prosperous and free of all barriers and obstacles, in accordance with the spirit of the founding fathers of ECOWAS” she said.

Similarly, while noting ECOWAS Member States’ commitment to build the Customs Union on solid foundations, Mr. Tèi Konzi, Commissioner, Trade, Customs and Free Movement of the ECOWAS Commission at the opening encouraged participants to take an active part in the meeting to make in order to come up with concrete proposals for the reopening of Nigeria's land borders to goods.

The meeting of the Experts is in preparation of the meeting of Ministers responsible for ECOWAS Affairs, Finance and Trade from Benin, Burkina Faso, C ô te d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and Togo scheduled to hold on 15^th February, 2020 in Ouagadougou.