FG set to focus on Railways and Inland Waterways to Facilitate Global Trade

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has implored the Federal Government to fully utilise the railways and inland waterways as part of its efforts to enhance the nation’s inter-connectivity in order to reduce the cost of its global trade.

He made this statement at a two day workshop for West and Central Africa sub-region tagged “Transport cost and regional connectivity of African countries”, where he was represented by the Minister of State and Aviation, Hadi Sirika.

“The main policy thrust of this administration is to evolve a multi-modal, integrated and sustainable transport system, with greater emphasis on rail and inland waterways transportation in order to foster quality connectivity within the system,” the minister stated.

He added, “An enabling environment for Public-Private Partnership, PPP, is being created by designing new policies, legislation and institutional framework that would support the envisaged improvement of the sector.

“However, the ports alone are not enough to connect to markets, other modes of transport (road, rail, air transport, inland waterways and inland ports) are essential since trade logistics now involves door-to-door or factory to warehouse movement of goods in international trade transactions.”