Free trade in Africa could change colonial legacy of exporting raw materials and buying finished goods
The vice-president of the Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF) said yesterday that the free trade agreement in Africa could end the colonial legacy of exporting raw materials and importing finished goods.
“It is unsustainable for African economies to continue to depend on natural resources and raw materials, which makes them vulnerable to trade shocks, liquidity constraints and brings challenges to macroeconomic management,” said Jean-Louis Ekra, former president of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), in his opening speech at the IATF, which is taking place this week in Cairo.
According to a statement released by Afreximbank, one of the organizers of the event, Ekra stressed that “the situation needs to change urgently, as it has worsened with the effects of the covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions and climate change”.
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) “cannot fail, especially since intra-African trade is worth only 16%”, well below the levels estimated for other regions.
This low level of trade within the continent, concluded the former banker, “is explained by constraints such as limited trade and infrastructure, including a system of payments and bank settlements between countries, the lack of access to relevant information, and the lack of access to information about the continent.
During the IATF, Afreximbank also announced that it had concluded cooperation and financing agreements worth more than 1 billion dollars (937 million euros) in several countries on the continent, including a 150 million dollar (145 million euro) agreement with the United Bank for Africa to help Nigeria deal with the rise in grain prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and others to support Kenya and Burundi, among others. (Lusa)
