Local Investors target of ECOWAS Investment Code

Accra, Aug. 5, GNA - Local investors are the key target of the community investment code being drawn up by the ECOWAS Commission to help position the sub-region to attract critically needed investment for development, Professor Lambert N'galadjo Bamba, Commissioner, Macroeconomic Policy, ECOWAS Commission, has said.

Briefing journalists at a press conference at the end of a two-day stakeholders conference to discuss and sensitise member countries on the new rules, Prof. Bamba said the focus of the new rule was to encourage intra-regional investment by ensuring that domestic investors play a central role in the process instead of solely relying on foreign investors for resources. "We are looking at attracting investments, not only from outside sources but also building the necessary confidence to allow local investors with resources to invest across countries," he said. The ECOWAS treaty signed about 33 years ago recognises the importance of single market as an attraction for investment. However, the process to achieve that goal has been slow.

Across the region, there are still controls on the movement of goods, persons and capital between countries and impediments to the inflow and outflow of direct and portfolio investment into and from the region despite the abundance of viable investment opportunities in the region. The Community Investment Rules and Codes will enable the free flow of Capital and Services in the region and become instruments for the creation of a Common Investment Market. Prof. Bamba said the code would make up for the deficiencies that member countries had suffered in attracting Foreign Direct Investment individually.

He said the harmonisation of regional investment policies into a singular code would remove obstacles to doing business and provide efficient and effective regulatory framework to promote healthy competition and growth of the regional private sector. "The code will not only end up reducing or eliminating complexities in the regional investment policies but would equally limit the potential of any future reintroduction of cumbersome requirements from prospective investors into the region," he said. Prof. Bamba denied that the process to draw up a common investment rule was being driven by external forces, saying that it was entirely an initiative of ECOWAS to further push the integration agenda forward. 05 Aug. 08