Gambia Trade Policy 2018-2022

OBJECTIVE

The overall goal of the Trade Policy is to make The Gambia a competitive and export-oriented economy led by private sector growth for employment creation and poverty reduction through trade.

CONTENT

The Specific Objectives, Trade and Policy Directions, Opportunities and Challenges to trade development, Policy Priority Areas and Policy Coordination Mechanism are summarised below:

Specific Objectives:

1. To stimulate the public and private sectors to invest and develop competitive and sustainable supply and productive capacities.
2. To facilitate the fuller participation of exporters, especially MSMEs in regional and international trade.
3. To create an enabling environment for investment, including foreign direct investment.
4. To facilitate and stimulate the establishment of coherent and well-coordinated trade and trade-related capacity-building, including human resources development and addressing industry-specific supply-side constraints and export promotion activities.

Trade and Policy Directions:

• Agriculture: The Policy advocates for a coherent agricultural logistics strategy that supports the agriculture and fisheries sectors as well as a comprehensive Land Policy that addresses the usage of agricultural land would be critical dimensions of such support measures.
• Fisheries: The Trade Policy calls for a more business-oriented approach to interventions in the fisheries sector through greater emphasis on the formation of business partnerships between the Government and the Private Sector.
• Tourism: The Trade Policy, aims at focusing on measures to diversify tourism products through linking the production sector through a value chain approach to meet the needs of the industry.
• Energy: The Trade Policy envisages a renewed focus on improving the policy and regulatory environment to attract investments, but also improving access to electricity and enhancing manufacturing and industry energy security.
• ICT (e-commerce): In order to ensure coherence of efforts in advancing e-commerce, the Government through the National Trade Policy aims at strengthening the ICT infrastructure to handle the growing demand of the use of information technology by businesses.
• Manufacturing: The Trade Policy incorporates competition policy within the framework of trade activities and trade negotiations to ensure an even distribution of benefits from policy measures between producers and consumers. The Trade Policy also reaffirms Government commitment to a liberal trading regime, as such recommends the repeal of the Price Control Act 1974 from the statutes.