Vincent Toritseju
Lagos — The Nigerian Chamber of Shipping, NCS, and its Ghanaian counterpart are currently in talks for the formation of a regional body to solving cross border trading challenges in the West African region.
According to the Director General of the NCS, Mrs Obiageli Obi, a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, has been drawn up and signed by some countries in the region.
She stated that the formation of a regional Chamber of Shipping would be launched immediately funds for the running of the body is available.
Obi explained that while Ghana was talking to some countries to see the need to form this regional group, Nigeria was also doing same with the hope of getting the entire region into the plan.
“We are in talk with Ghana, Sierra-Leone and other countries just as Ghana is also talking to other countries over these issues affecting regional integration.
“A Memorandum of Understanding has been drawn, we will sign this MoU and the project launched soon.
“We want to take the regional issues and talk about them amongst and see how we can get regional shipping working, see how we can get connectivity within the sub-region and all these border issues can be dealt with by the various Chambers of Shipping,” she said.
She added: “Lome can come to Nigeria and discuss their problem under the auspices of the Chamber of Shipping with Nigeria concerning that because we have counterparts who believe in the same thing, all we want is the flow of regional trade.
“The Nigerian Chamber of Shipping and the Ghanaian Chamber of Shipping are legacy partners because we initiated the Regional Chamber of Shipping we have had meetings in Ghana and we have had meetings in Nigeria and we have signed off.”