Buhari advocates duty-free market access to boost economy of least-developed countries

By Business AM 

President Muhammadu Buhari has enjoined the developed world to grant duty-free and quota-free market accesses for products originating from the world’s 46 least-developed countries to enable their integration in regional and global value chains.

The Nigerian leader made the call at the United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDCs), in Doha, the capital city of Qatar.

Buhari,who criticised the current structure of the global financial system,lamented that it places an unsustainable external debt burden on the most vulnerable countries.  He further warned that the debt burdens would make it extremely difficult for LDCs to meet the 2030 Agenda for Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

 In a statement signed by Garba Shehu,the senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, the president recalled that in 2015, the world came together to endorse the 2030 Agenda for Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals.

‘‘There was no doubt that it was highly ambitious and would require leaders around the world to be fully committed for the SDGs to be achieved within the projected timeframe.

‘‘Eight years on, the possibility of achieving the SDGs remains bleak for many countries, particularly, the Least Developed Countries. The difficulties in achieving the SDGs are numerous and were further compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, the continued threat of Climate Change, and recently the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” he said.

According to Buhari, the Least Developed Countries are often faced with developmental vulnerabilities and challenges that are not always of their making. These, he explained, pose huge obstacles to their development efforts, hence the need for urgent and robust assistance to help unlock their potentials and build socio-economic resilience.

‘‘This assistance can be provided within the framework of the Doha Programme of Action which is designed to help LDCs exit their current classification,’’ he added.

To this end,the president challenged developed countries, civil society actors, the private sector, and the business community, to partner with the LDCs in order to provide necessary resources and capacity to deliver development outcomes in the economic, social, and environmental aspects of the 2030 Agenda.

Highlighting some measures and priorities that will help LDCs recover from COVID-19, achieve SDGs, develop and prosper over the long term, Buhari said:

‘‘Policy and budgetary provisions must be made to ensure equal access to medicare and vaccines, for both the poor and the rich alike. We must also work with manufacturers of medical equipment and pharmaceutical companies to provide adequate equipment, test-kits, vaccines and treatments for diseases.

He underscored the need for reforms of the international financial architecture that prioritises the need of Least Developed Countries to address the issue of rising debt burden in the LDCs.

Buhari also shared the United Nations Secretary-General’s sentiment of the global financial system as an “unfair debt architecture that not only charges poor countries much more money to borrow on the market than advanced economies, but downgrades them when they even think of restructuring their debt or applying for debt relief.”

On trade issues, he said it is important to put in place modalities to facilitate transit cooperation, transfer of technologies, and access to global e-commerce platforms, as they are critical for the integration of LDCs into the regional and global value chains and communications technology services.

‘‘The adoption of a global coordination mechanism to systematically monitor illicit financial flows and engender support for a United Nations International convention on tax matters to eliminate base erosion and profit shifting, tax evasion, capital gains tax and other tax abuses is essential to achieving the SDGs and promoting security and economic prosperity,’’ he stated..

On Nigeria’s expectation for the Conference, President Buhari expressed optimism that the Doha Programme of Action would lead to the acceleration of exports from LDCs by 2031, through the facilitation of their access to foreign markets in line with the World Trade Organization Facilitation Agreement.