Group Chief Executive Officer, Emerging Africa Capital Group, Toyin Sanni has stressed the potentials posed by AfCFTA to raise Intra-Africa trade from the paltry 15% of Gross domestic product to 25% in the near future and estimated to boost Africa’s income in 2025 by $500 billion.
Sanni in a virtual conference tagged “African 2021 Outlook” at the Africa Investment Roundtable explained that AfCFTA will cover copyright, protocols of competition, and brings together Africa’s 1.3 billion people and it’s $3.4 trillion market through monitoring and elimination of multiple barriers to trade with other regions and take advantage of AFCFTA.
“Many advance nations had stimulus packages of 10% of GDP but most African countries could not afford up to 1% GDP”, Sanni said.
The Market Expert described the significances of Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement as African recovery plan in proffering solutions to the economic implications of coronavirus pandemic in the continent.
Africa Investment, African Investment Roundtable is research-based leadership platform that provide in-depth examination on the Africa Investment Landscape.
Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a flagship project of the African Union’s Agenda 2063, It aims to boost intra-African trade by providing a comprehensive and mutually beneficial trade agreement among the member states, covering trade in goods and services, investment, intellectual property rights and competition policy.
The AfCFTA launched in Africa 2019 will be governed by five operational instruments, includes the Rules of Origin; the online negotiating forum; the monitoring and elimination of non-tariff barriers; a digital payments system and the African Trade Observatory.
The Assembly approved the start of trading under the AfCFTA Agreement as 1 January 2021. To date, 34 countries have both signed and deposited their instruments of AfCFTA ratification with the AUC Chairperson. Of the 55 AU member states, only Eritrea has yet to join.