The following is excerpted from a 25 October 2013 article by Reuters.
Leaders of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) agreed on Friday to implement a single customs tariff regime from 2015 in an effort to accelerate economic integration.
The Common External Tariff is designed to harmonize customs charged on imported goods to the bloc of some 300 million people.
"This is an objective ECOWAS has pursued since its creation 38 years ago and today we have crossed an important stage in the integration of our peoples," the president of the Ecowas commission, Kadre Desire Ouedraogo, told Reuters.
This article is available in its entirety at:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/25/us-africa-west-tariff-idUSBRE99O10O20131025