Digital economy contributes $30bn annually to West African GDP — WATRA

The West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly (WATRA) has the digital economy currently contributes around $30 billion annually to the region’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

WATRA’s Executive Secretary Mr Aliyu Aboki who disclosed this during a virtual press conference at the weekend also said the West African telecommunications market is now valued at $63.17 billion with over 400 million mobile subscribers.

However, Aboki said WATRS is working on initiatives to facilitate infrastructure sharing among West African countries to lower the cost of internet for telecom subscribers across the region.

According to him, infrastructure such as gateways, and data centres are facilities that could be shared by countries in the region.

• NIGERIA DAILY: The Link Between Illegal Mining and Banditry
• Ex-minister Dalung berates Tinubu, Onanuga, says protest sacrosanct

Admitting that the cost of internet across West African countries is still high, Aboki said a lower cost of internet access would enhance the digital economy for the respective countries in the region and increase the consumption of data by the citizens, which in turn generate more revenue for the telecom operators.

“We are exploring regional initiatives to share infrastructure and reduce cost. For example, we have infrastructures like gateways, data center servers, and so on. These are infrastructures that can be shared and used by different countries without necessarily having everyone building the same infrastructure.

“So, we are collectively looking at these rich regional initiatives that enable us to share infrastructure to bring down the cost of Internet ultimately,” the WATRA scribe said.