Implementation of AfCFTA will boost production and job creation: ECA’s Vera Songwe
The key to creating an effective free trade area in Africa is to increase production on the continent, to tap on the huge opportunities offered by the African market, which will reach 3.6 trillion dollars by 2025, said Vera Songwe, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission in Africa, ECA. With the historical signing of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AFCFTA) set to happen this week in Kigali, she added, “we are witnessing a substantial paradigm shift on the continent, we are saying that Africa can determine its terms of trade”. Mrs. Songwe made this point during the AfCFTA Business Forum taking place today in Kigali, ahead of the Extra-Ordinary Summit of the African Union, and attended by African Heads of State, representatives of the private sector and the civil society. The AfCFTA, claimed Mrs. Songwe, will help African businesses benefit from economies of scale, and create supply chains that will allow the continent to reduce its import bills, especially for industrial inputs. Currently, she added, tariff and non-tariff barriers are major impediments to the development of intra-African trade.
| Format: | Press release biblioteca |
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| Language: | eng |
| Published: |
2018-03
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10855/45687 |
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