Africa Continental Free Trade Area Goes Operational

Cyril Ramaphosa, President of the Republic of South Africa and current Chairperson of the African Union has officially opened the doors of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area. Speaking via video conference, the AU Chair hailed African countries for making the dreams of their forefathers a reality. He said, the Africa Continental Free Trade Area is an enormous market African countries will benefit from when the 2019 resolutions are fully implemented and tariffs harmonize. He appealed on countries still dragging their feel to join the train wagon. Prior to Friday’s launching, the AfCFTA secretariat projected speeches by some African Union Heads of State and Government, representatives of development partners and the private sector as well as showing of videos on different aspects of trade and development in Africa.
As of the 1st of January, the percentage of trade that African countries do with each other was between 16 - 18%. The bulk of the continent’s trade was with the rest of the world, and most African exports are in raw materials including extractive commodities like oil, gas and minerals which are vulnerable to market volatility. Under AfCFTA trading, tariffs on various commodities where rules of origin have been agreed will be drastically reduced and traders of all sizes will have a...