One of the best weapons to attenuate the effects of world oil price hikes and consequential rising prices of petroleum products is to enhance trade among Africa States. This was one of the key propositions of the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Ephraim Inoni, on Friday, March 28 while presiding at the 25th session of the Council of Ministers of the African Petroleum Producing Association (APPA). “The promotion of intra-African trade in petroleum products, seems to be an area worth exploring, against the backdrop of the increase in oil bills”, he told participants at the opening ceremony in Yaounde.

Holding under the patronage of the Head of State, the 25th session of APPA Council of Ministers set out to adopt an action plan for 2008-2011, a budget for 2008-2009 and cleanse up the secretariat after the 2007 audit. But all these had to be done against the backdrop of certain dispensations the sector is going through, notably disturbing high crude oil prices in the international market which have surpassed the 100 Dollar barrel ceiling. This state of affairs certainly calls for a united action from Africa irrespective of whether the countries are oil-producing or not.

The question member countries of APPA have been asking is how does the continent go about this? Do the objectives assigned to APPA permit the organisation to take decisions that will influence world prices? To the Libyan official, Seddigui Ismail, National APPA representative for that country, one of the gateways out of the situation for Africa, is for APPA countries to step up production and sell the products at prices that are lower than the ones in the world market.

This will certainly require a lot of cooperation between member States, which is what the Prime Minister underscored the importance of the project to launch an APPA Technical Cooperation Fund. “I hope the examination of these issues will result in concrete actions aimed at fructifying this fund and ensuring that it is used to develop cooperation among our States”, Inoni said. Cameroon’s Plenipotentiary Current President of APPA, Adolphe Moudiki, was particularly concerned about the laxity in the financial contribution of member countries to the fund which he said went operational in 2007 with an original capital of 4 million dollars.

At the end of the deliberations, the Ministers named Jean-Baptiste Tati Loutard, Minister of Mines, Energy and Hydrocarbons for Congo Brazzaville, as next APPA president, while David Ekoumé, a Cameroonian was maintained as interim Executive Secretary for one year. Adolphe Moudiki, the outgoing president presided at the closing.

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