Nearly seven years after the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement was adopted, intracontinental trade in the continent remains sluggish, at around 14.6%. Progress in the free movement of people protocol, which looks to reduce mobility between African countries, is also dragging, with just four countries having ratified it.
Representatives and experts from several African countries gathered in Addis Ababa last week for the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development to advance agreements for the establishment of AfCFTA.
Antonio Pedro, Deputy Executive Secretary at the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), underscored the importance of leveraging the AfCFTA to minimize the fallout from the increasingly undermined multilateral global trading system. He questioned the feasibility of importing fertilizer and petroleum products when locally manufactured alternatives are available.
“Are there self-imposed barriers?” Antonio enquired.
The Deputy referred to trade relations between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Cameroon, highlighting how the two countries were more trade-distant to one another than they were to China or the United States of America.
While the AfCFTA would cap continental efforts stretching back nearly six decades, it faces considerable challenges in a rapidly multipolar global setting. A whopping 410 billion dollars would be required by the AfCTA just to meet demands in transport infrastructure, according to a study conducted in 2022. In an ideal scenario, the AfCTA could grow into one of the most powerful free trade areas, encompassing 54 countries and over 1.2 billion people.
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