Accra, Aug. 4, GNA - Discussions have begun with a cross-section of businessmen, private sector and civil society organisations on new rules and regulations to position the West African sub-region as an attractive single market for investments.

The two-day workshop, being facilitated by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, is aimed to enhance awareness among member states of the community on investment and also to deal with the challenges imposed by national legislations on cross-border trade and investment. The ECOWAS treaty signed about 33 years ago recognises the importance of single market. However, the process to achieve that goal has been slow.

Across the region, there are still controls on the free 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. Opening the workshop, Dr. Charles Brempong-Yeboah, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, said the prospects for attracting and sustaining investment in the sub-region could be improved if countries implemented good investment policies together. He said the attainment of the Common Market would promote intra-regional trade and investment leading to improved lives for the citizenry.

Dr Brempong-Yeboah described as unhealthy the competition among member states for scarce foreign investment, saying the move obstructed intra-regional trade and depressed over-all regional economic growth. Professor Lambert N'galadjo Bamba, Commissioner, Macroeconomic Policy, ECOWAS Commission, 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. He said the code would 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. Prof. Bamba said the combination of a stable common regional investment climate, transport and communication infrastructure and sound macro-economic policies could provide adequate incentives for large-scale investments in manufacturing and service projects.