Enhancing intra-African trade: how will Nigeria's service sector fare?

Abstract

African Union's vision of integrating markets across Africa through the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) will soon become a reality if the current level of negotiation among the 54 African countries is sustained. The core objective of the agreement is to promote trade in goods and services within Africa. While services sector represents the largest contributor to aggregate output in the continent, its exports remain challenged with Nigeria being the least service exporter among the largest three economies in Africa. In this Policy Brief, we analysed the potential of Africa's trade in services and examined Nigeria's preparedness for gaining market access leveraging on its areas of strength. This report provided some recommendations such as the need for Nigeria to clearly define its proposition as we go into the CFTA agreement; the need for government to continuously engage the private sector to seek technical support and the urgent need for the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to gather data relating to the value of service trade in Nigeria to aid decision making.