The seminar organized by Liberia's Ministry of Commerce and Industry, drew its participants from the ministries of commerce, finance, the Liberia Chamber of Commerce and national trade unions. The participants among others, will be trained on how to negotiate trade, something the organizers observed, Liberia was lagging behind in as a member of the global community.

In remarks at the opening of the seminar Tuesday, Liberia's acting commerce minister Frederick Norkeh said the world has become a global village with its economy growing bigger, and that trade negotiation has become fundamental.

"The current workshop is another level in our activities aimed mainly at developing the capacity of Liberians through the activities of the Liberia National Coordinating Committee on Trade (LNCCT)," observed Mr. Gibson Obasi, Administrative Officer of the ECOWAS Trade Negotiation Capacity Building Project.

He said ECOWAS TNCB is in the second phase of its program activities , which is mainly capacity building for member states for effective and efficient trade policy decision making.

He said in the first phase of the project which lasted from 2003-2007, dwelt mainly on human capacity building. He said during that period, more than 430 officials from the government, private sector and civil society organizations, were trained on multilateral trade and negotiation skills in ECOWAS member states.

Mr. Obasi said the ECOWAS TNCB project is jointly funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and ECOWAS.

-APA