Bilateral trade: Nigeria, Morocco as strategic players in Africa

Nigeria and Morocco, Africa’s fast-rising emerging countries are seeking ways to enhance opportunities for growth and development in Africa, as they launch the first edition of the “Morocco-Nigeria Strategic Dialogues: focusing on Enhancing Opportunities for Growth and Development. The agreement has, at the centre of it; The Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), the Africa Economic Development Policy Initiative (AEDPI) and OCP Policy Centre of Morocco. With the aim of promoting trade in the two countries, and catalysing debate and new ideas related to the future economic and other relationships between both countries. The Managing Director of the OCP Policy Centre, Morocco, Karim El Aynaoui, in a statement, said that the first edition would focus on: Fiscal and Monetary Policies in Times of Uncertainty; the Complementarities between Nigeria and Morocco in the Energy Sector; the Role of Financial markets and the Mobilisation of Local Resources, as well as the Role of Youth and Diaspora at the Regional and Continental levels. The objective of this joint initiative is to provide a platform for comparative analysis of the challenges and potentials of the two economies as well as possible actions to promote complementary exchanges and synergies between them. It further noted that in the energy sector, there is very high value in highlighting the complementarities between Nigeria and Morocco, Nigeria being the first producer of Oil and Gas on the African Continent, and Morocco being a significant player in renewable energy. “When it comes to the role of fiscal and monetary policies, it is worth noting that price stability is essential in avoiding prolonged inflation and deflation and represents a significant objective of monetary policy. “Monetary and fiscal policies are both critical in ensuring a stable economy, and Central Banks and Ministries of Finance have an important role to play in mitigating the impact of commodity prices fluctuation on the economic activity and how they can work to provide price stability”, it added. Joy Obakeye