Reports say Inter-regional trade accounts for only ten percent of the import and export of commodities across ECOWAS member states.
This may not be unrelated to the quest by citizens of the region to obtain the United States Dollars, thereby, hiking the cost of living in the region.
Speaking at a conference organized in Guinea Bissau, by the Economic Community of West African States Parliamentarians to address increasing trend of inflation in the region, Speaker of the Parliament, Dr. Sidie Mohamed Tunis, said in spite of the political will of member states, there are external influences bent on hindering the implementation of the ECOWAS single currency, hence the need to act appropriately for its actualization.
The Parliamentary Seminar tagged: “Common Currency of ECOWAS and the Inter Bank Payment System as an Instrument for the Promotion of Regional Trade,” is the first for the year 2023 and can buttress how much energy the parliamentarians are willing to put in to tackling regional problems so as to alleviate poverty and hunger for citizens’ well-being.
According to Tunis, the benefits of the ECOWAS single currency are enormous as it will end all forms of grumbling around the prices of commodities regionally.
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