Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have eliminated tariffs on 13,000 goods after an 11-month intense trade negotiation that ended with the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) signed by the two countries on Tuesday.
The negotiation began under the direct supervision of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who has made four trips to the UAE to advance the bilateral relationship.
The agreement, signed on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Summit, emerged from what the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Jumoke Oduwole, described as “hard-fought negotiations” between the two countries.
Speaking in an interview in Abu Dhabi, Oduwole, who served as Nigeria’s Chief Negotiator, said the negotiations involved a coordinated inter-ministerial effort spanning multiple government agencies, including the Ministry of Justice, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
“As the Chief Negotiator for Nigeria, I led those negotiations myself with the whole inter-ministerial team. The technical team from Justice to CBN to Customs really delivered for the Nigerian economy on this one in a very coordinated and disciplined manner,” Oduwole stated.
