Article
ECOWAS MEMBER STATES
The Economic Community of West African States comprises the following 15 countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.Members of the Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine (UEMOA): Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.
EBID in Brief
Authorised capital: $750m.
 EBID is the biggest shareholder of the Ecobank Group which has a presence in 13 West African countries.
EBID is in charge of financing the INTELCOM 2 programme to modernise West Africa's telecommunications.
EBID's subsidiary, ERIB, has shares in the capital of Ecomarine, a West African maritime transport company.
ERBF co-finances the integration of the electric power networks of Niger, Benin, Togo and Ghana with an extension to Côte d'Ivoire.
ERDF also co-finances the construction of transcoastal roads in the region, in particular roads from Dakar to Lagos and from Dakar to N'Djamena.
EBID and NEPAD
When NEPAD was created, ECOWAS was designated in the Plan of Action as the implementing agency for its programmes in the sub-region. All ECOWAS projects, such as the West African Gas Pipeline and the West African Power Pool, were, therefore, placed under the umbrella of NEPAD. The ECOWAS Fund had been financing these important regional integration projects for many years and EBID continued financing them when it took over. EBID, therefore, became the de facto financing bank for NEPAD programmes in West Africa.
ERIB
ERIB (Authorised Capital: $500m)
ERIB, the ECOWAS Regional Investment Bank, concentrates on promoting the private and commercial sub-sectors and supports the financial sector of ECOWAS member states.
ERIB's activities include:
Granting medium and long-term loans for commercial projects in all sectors.
Granting loans to national financial institutions, or for on-lending to SMEs/SMIs under refinancing agreements and lines of credit
Participating in equity capital and providing quasi-capital
Issuing and guaranteeing borrowings, national, regional or international bonds and securities
Financing feasibility studies for investment projects
Providing financial engineering and other financial services.
Areas of Intervention: Telecommunications (mobile and fixed lines); energy (production, transportation and distribution; water (treatment and recycling); ports and airports (construction, renovation, capacity building); transport (roads and toll bridges, railways); environment (treatment and recycling of waste); industry (all forms); hospitals and private clinics; hotels and real estate.
ERDF
ERDF (Authorised Capital: $500m) The ECOWAS Regional Development Fund, ERDF, focuses on the public sector, particularly the financing of basic economic infrastructure and poverty alleviation projects. ERDF activities include:·
Granting medium and long-term concessionary loans for basic infrastructure and economic and social projects in member states;
Granting loans for the implementation of special community programmes defined by the ECOWAS Executive Secretariat;
Granting loans for feasibility studies;
Providing assistance to member states;
Implementing various activities relating to resource mobilisation and management of special funds;
Areas of intervention: Basic infrastructure; micro-finance; health; education and professional training; rural and semi-urban development and environment (financing village hydraulic systems and supporting grassroots development organisations); development of economic infrastructure (energy, industry, transport, telecommunications, irrigation), control of flooding of rivers, and integration of regional production into the worldwide economy.
Advantages of Investing in ECOWAS
Since the EBID Group is the main ECOWAS institution responsible for facilitating the private sector, it has a key role in helping investors successfully invest in the sub-region.
The ECOWAS market represents 234m consumers and enjoyed a growth rate of 3.7% in 2003, compared to 2.9% in 2002. The growth rate was higher than the global growth rate for the same period and for those of the industrialised countries, Latin America and the Caribbean.
In addition to the substantial ECOWAS market, investing in the sub-region is a gateway to larger markets. Companies can reach the 456m-strong European market, thanks to the Cotonou Agreement. ECOWAS (plus Mauritania) is the first Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) region with nearly 41% of total ACP-EU trade. Among the 10 most important ACP partners, five are from ECOWAS (Nigeria 18%, Liberia 5%, Côte d'Ivoire 4%, Senegal 4% and Ghana 4%).
Under the EU-ACP Lomé Convention and the Cotonou Agreement, all ECOWAS countries have benefited from preferential access to the EU market. For example, in 2002 32% of ECOWAS exports went to the EU, 99.8% of them without customs duties.
Furthermore, Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are replacing the current non-reciprocal preferential trade regime, thus tackling all barriers to trade. ECOWAS began negotiating a Regional Economic Partnership Agreement in 2003 and this will grant full duty and quota-free market access.
Trade with the EU is further facilitated by the fact that the West Africa Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) market - Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo - is part of ECOWAS. The UEMOA market is incorporated into the vast economic and monetary zone structured around the Euro. Europe already absorbs more than half of the UEMOA countries' exports, much of which enjoy preferential tariffs. Moreover, investing in ECOWAS' CFA countries also means easier access to Central African markets, since they also use the CFA franc.
Trade between the ECOWAS market and the US is facilitated by the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). AGOA allows imports from eligible sub-Saharan African countries to enter the United States duty-free. Twelve of the 15 ECOWAS member states - Benin, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone - are eligible. In 2003, over 95% of US imports from AGOA-eligible countries entered duty-free. US imports under AGOA were valued at just over $14bn in 2003, a 55% increase from 2002.
The major comparative advantage of ECOWAS is that it re-groups West African countries into a single trading bloc. Some of Africa's strongest economies, such as Nigeria, are part of this bloc. Nigeria is the fourth strongest economy on the African continent, with a GDP of $50,202m in 2003, and the second strongest in sub-Saharan Africa. Côte d'Ivoire is the 10th strongest economy on the African continent and the sixth strongest in sub-Saharan Africa, with a GDP of $13,734m in 2003 and Ghana is the ninth strongest sub-Saharan African economy, with a GDP of $7,659m in 2003.
Investing in this zone is also being made easier by the implementation of a second monetary union involving The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. This monetary zone, with the ECO, alongside UEMOA's common currency, the CFA (which is indexed to the Euro), is expected to be merged into a single monetary zone in the future, thus making trade in this zone even easier.
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