Intra-Regional Trade And Economic Growth Of West Africa

Intraregional trade agreement has a quite extensive record in almost all parts of several regions.The study hubs on the impact of intraregional trade on the growth of West African countries.It confers the problems which occur in trade and how they are being addressed.The research also provides how this study will help researchers and the people who are new to trade.The study has used both qualitative and quantitative methods and for this reason,it has used interpretive philosophy as well.The ARDL approach,also known as auto regressive distribution lag is used in the current study to fulfil the aim of the study.The study is based on explanatory nature,and the information was collected by means of secondary data in which the facts and figures were collected from economic indicators like Imports,Exports,Foreign Direct Investment(FDI),Balance of Payment(BOP),Savings,labour supply and Inflation which were used to know about the independent variables and trade volume as dependent variable.Also,data was collected by taking interviews from renowned economists and intra-regional traders and professors.As a sample,eight hundred and forty(840)observations were taken from eight countries in West Africa(Gambia,Ghana,Guinea,Liberia,Mali,Mauritania,Nigeria,and Togo).The secondary data was collected from the world bank website extending from 2004 to 2018.The data was analysed using regression analysis to examine the impact of intra-regional trade channels(Imports,Exports,BOP,SAV,LS and Inflation)to economic growth in West Africa.The research has found out that Exports,Balance of Payment,Savings and Supply of Labour have positive channels of Intra-regional that have a significant effect on the economic growth.On the other hand,import and Intra-regional trade channels have negative and significant effect on the economic growth.For the economic growth to be enhanced in West Africa it is recommended that;The Exports,Balance of Payment,Labor Supply,and Savings should be enhanced among the West Africa countries to boost the intra-regional trade to enrich the economic growth.However,the West African countries should focus on export-led growth.But with this,the imports cannot entirely be neglected.The financial institutions of the country must be regulated and the policies to provide reasonable return and ease of doing business must be given to the other countries so that the level of foreign direct investment can be increased in order to lead the economy in a positive direction.West African region,collaboratively,can make efforts to attract investors.In this effort,the region can use the lower rates of inflation and with this;the rate of interest must also be decreased so that investors can easily invest in the region.