The document is premised on a global vision that will enable member states to benefit from their comparative advantages.

WACIP seeks to diversify the region’s industrial production base by progressively raising the local content of such products to an average of 30 per cent by 2030 by creating new industrial production capacities and upgrading existing ones.

The policy is designed to help improve intra-Community trade from the present 13 per cent to 40 per cent by 2030 and increase the volume of exports of manufactured goods from West Africa to the global market from the current 0.1 per cent to one per cent by 2030. This will be done through the enhancement and development of skills, industrial competitiveness and quality infrastructure in information, communication and transport.

Meanwhile, a delegation of the committee of ECOWAS Chiefs of Defence Staff has concluded a fact-finding mission to Guinea Bissau during which they revisited the events of April 1 2010 when renegade members of the armed forces detained the Prime Minister and the Chief of Defence Staff. The former was later released while the latter Staff is being detained.

The visit also enabled the four-member delegation of chiefs of defence staff to better understand the events of that day, which also saw the release from the UN compound, of a former chief of the navy who was cited in a failed coup.

The delegation also met with the special representative of the UN Secretary General and other UN officials, the minister of defence and the special representative of the European Union, the ministers of interior, economy, planning and regional integration.

In another development, Ecowas praised the military government in Niger for releasing its 12-month transition timetable for restoring democracy. The country had until the military intervention of February 2010, been embroiled in political crisis over the violation of the constitution by the deposed President, Mahamadou Tandja.

“This is a quantum leap in the journey to constitutional rule, given the confusion that reigned in the country recently over how long the military intended to stay in power”, the President of the ECOWAS Commission, His Excellency,  James Victor Gbeho, said

By PATRICK WACHIRA