Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), has called on African countries to urgently domesticate the provisions of the treaty to fast-track the continent’s economic progress.
Wamkele Mene made the call at the maiden edition of the Ghana Trade Policy Enlightenment Summit for Foreigners, GaTPES2022.
Mr. Mene urged state-parties to the AfCFTA agreement to use its provision to build their economies and transform lives.
“The agreement, which is the treaty, needs to be translated into laws; and those laws are then used by the business person in order to do business, and to put money in the pockets of the business person, and to put money in the economy of the country at large.
“AfCFTA brings together 1.3 billion people on the African continent. It also brings together the various economic communities. It equally ensures that there are economies of scale. It essentially takes previously small fragmented economies and creates a single African market for trade in goods and trade in services. Additionally, (AfCFTA) will bring together other areas of the economy, such as investments, intellectual property rights, and competition.”
Wamkele Mene
The Secretary General disclosed that there are other legal instruments, called annexes that provide for customs cooperation, technical standards, sanitary standards, rules of origin. Rules of origin help to ensure that only qualifying goods that are made in Africa benefit from the preferences under the AfCFTA agreement.
“It will also include trade remedies, transit, trade facilitation. And, all of these will help to ease the process of doing business in Africa. It will bring down the cost of trade transactions and streamline processes for the business community. Under trade in services, the first round of trade liberalisation will open up services such ad business services, telecom, financial services, transport and tourism.”
Wamkele Mene
The Second Round of the AfCFTA Agreement
Mr. Mene asserted that the second round of the agreement will cover the remaining seven service areas, such as construction, education, health, energy-related services, etc. “Now, we are in the final stages of negotiations between the state-parties to the agreement. And, each country is then obliged to implement the provisions of the agreement.”
“They must publish the laws or regulations in a prominent place, for instance in their official gazette or the internet, to ensure there is transparency. And the business community will then make use of these laws in order to transact business. So, in addition to the AfCFTA legal instruments, we also have supporting measures, such as the Pan-African Payment System.”
Wamkele Mene
Mr. Mene stated that the Pan-African Payment System is crucial to the AfCFTA agreement. He explained that the Pan-African Payment System is the collaboration between the AfCFTA secretariat, the African Union Commission and the African Export-Import Bank, Afrexim Bank. That will enable any business person to pay for goods and services in a local currency, and those local currencies will then be convertible into the local currencies of another.
“For instance, you are a business person in Ghana, and you want to transact business with a supplier in Burkina Faso or in Angola, you pay with your cedi, and the person in Angola receives in peso while the person in Burkina Faso receives in cfa franc. What I want to leave with you is that this AfCFTA is a tool for business, because trade is a developmental tool.”
Wamkele Mene
The Secretary General remonstrated that it’s not just to be sitting in the statute books of your country. Effectively, the agreement, which is the treaty, needs to be translated into laws; and those laws are then used by the business person in order to do business, and to put money in the pockets of the business person, and to put money into the economy of the public at large. “You must use the provisions of the AfCFTA, you must use the opening up of the markets to do your business across countries in order to build your economies and to further your economic progress and transform lives.”
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