A group of researchers on Tuesday, October 29 at the ongoing Africa Economic Conference in Johannesburg reaffirmed the need to step up investment in physical infrastructure and remove non-tariff barriers to facilitate regional trade across the continent.
During a session dedicated to Regional Integration in the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), chaired by Janvier Litse, Director of NEPAD, Regional Integration and Trade at the African Development Bank, scholars observed that bridging the existing infrastructure gap among countries including improving the quality of roads and investing in telecommunication infrastructure is needed to facilitate regional trade.
"Improvement in the quality of roads will increase movement of factors of production which will foster intra-regional trade in the short, medium and long term," Litse said.
Other soft infrastructure is needed to fast-track the achievement of the objectives of the ECOWAS trade liberalization scheme," said Uduak Akpan, from the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa during his presentation titled: "The Impact of Regional Road Infrastructure -Improvement on intra-regional trade in ECOWAS."