The Federal Government has called on the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to encourage and support regional liberalisation efforts, seeing as they could as they could be incentives towards achieving global multilateral agreement on liberalisation of market access.
This call was contained in a speech delivered by the Minister of Aviation, Sen. Hadi Sirika at the 41st Assembly of the organisation holding in Montreal, Canada.
In his address to the 193-member organisation, Sirika called on the ICAO to “continue to encourage and support regional liberalisation efforts, as they could be used as incentives to achieving global multilateral agreement on liberalisation of market access”.
Also, Sirika informed the assembly that Nigeria’s efforts towards liberalisation have led to significant increase in the operations of foreign and domestic airlines and utilisation of the nation’s airports, resulting in an annual traffic growth of over eight per cent.
He disclosed that since the advent of the Buhari administration, the num er of passengers have quadrupled, the number of airports and airlines have doubled and there is a noticeable increase in catering and other businesses, so much that before COVOD-19, the sector became the fastest growing arm of the Nigerian economy.
While conveying the warm greetings and felicitations from President Muhammadu Buhari, Sirika also joined other delegations to congratulate the President of the 41st Assembly Poppy Khoza and other elected officials of the assembly.
The 41st Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation holds from September 27 to October 7, 2022 in Montreal, Canada.
The minister was accompanied by the director-general of Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Prof Mansur Bako Matazu.
