ADDIS ABABA (Xinhua) — A senior official of the African Union (AU) has underlined the need for AU member states to act quickly to move forward the agenda of realizing continental free trade (CFTA) in Africa.
Fatima Haram Acyl, AU Commissioner for Trade and Industry, made the remark on Monday during the opening of the First Ministerial Meeting of the Specialized Technical Committee on Trade, Industry and Minerals at the headquarters of the pan-African bloc in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa.
The two-day meeting, which was preceded by session of experts, has been organized under the theme, “Promoting regional integration through trade and inclusive and sustainable industrial development in Africa.”
Recalling that the AU summit in June 2015 launched the CFTA negotiations in commitment to the realization of CFTA by 2017, the AU Commissioner called for speedy action to ensure the ambitious agenda of the continent on CFTA.
“We have an ambitious agenda before us. It is therefore incumbent on us to ensure the effective delivery of this target. We should therefore be prepared to provide the necessary guidance bearing in mind the overall goal of One Africa, One Market, in line with the aim and objectives of the Abuja Treaty,” she said.
“As a result of the foregoing, we can agree that it’s time for us to act and act quickly. It’s time to move forward our Agenda,” she added.
In his statement made through a representative, Abdalla Hamdok, Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), noted that the realization of African CFTA would be a major step forward for economic integration via boosting intra-African trade.
CFTA in goods alone would lead to an increase in intra-African trade of around 55 billion U.S. dollars or 60 percent of its current level, said Hamdok.
“If this is complemented by Africa taking trade facilitation measures that reduce trade costs by half, these increases would be even greater,” he said.       Trade in services is also included in the negotiations for the CTFA, he said, Africa’s service sector accounted for around 1.2 trillion dollars of Africa’s gross domestic product in 2014.
If Africa reduces barriers to trade services between its countries, it could increase integration of economies through higher cross-border flows of services within the continent, he noted.
Jean Bakole, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Regional Director, has called for appropriate policies, including that of industrial, to foster regional integration and intra-Africa trade and boost infrastructure.
The ministers are expected to deliberate on issues related to the CFTA and ongoing negotiations on it that they report on the progress on the CFTA at coming AU summit in July Kigali, Rwanda.
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EARLIER REPORT:

United Nations and African Union highlight continued partnership
UNITED NATIONS (Xinhua) — The United Nations and African Union officials Tuesday highlighted their continued cooperation and partnership in the maintenance of peace and security in the African continent, in an open debate at the UN Security Council.
“No single organization can succeed on its own in addressing the challenges that confront us,” Haile Menkerios, head of the United Nations Office to the African Union and special representative to the African Union told the meeting.
Menkerios noted that the United Nations values cooperation with regional and sub-regional organizations. “In the past decade, regional and sub-regional organizations have gained greater influence over conflict dynamics and regional politics,” he added.
He underscored the organizations’ joint efforts to help stabilize the volatile situations across Africa, including in the Lake Chad Basin, Somalia, Burundi and the Sahel.
The debate, with a theme of “United Nations-African Union peace and security cooperation,” is attended by Security Council members, dozens of other UN member states as well as officials representing the UN Secretariat, the AU Commission, UN Peacebuilding Commission and the UN Office to the African Union, respectively.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous said that strengthening global and regional partnerships in Africa is critical to maintaining peace and security in the continent.
“The African Union, directly or not, is the most important partner of the United Nations in peacekeeping. Three simple figures illustrate this: 9 out of 16 UN peacekeeping operations are in Africa, over 80 percent of all uniformed peacekeepers are deployed in UN peacekeeping missions in Africa, and almost 50 percent of all uniformed peacekeepers come from AU member states,” said the UN peacekeeping chief.
The Security Council adopted a presidential statement on UN-AU cooperation at the meeting, which “stressed the importance of further strengthening cooperation and developing an effective partnership with the African Union”.
Currently, the UN Secretariat and the AU Commission are finalising a Joint UN-AU Framework for an Enhanced Partnership in Peace and Security that is expected to provide a blueprint for early and continuous engagement between these organisations before, during and after conflict and with a view to finding political solutions to the crises on the continent.
The framework is expected to institutionalise the strategic partnership between the AU and the UN, as well as to provide the basis for practical cooperation on peace operations.
The United Nations and the African Union has stepped up peace and security cooperation over the past decade.
In 2006, the Framework for the Ten-Year Capacity-Building Programme for the African Union was launched. The joint annual consultations of the Security Council and the AU Peace and Security Council of the African Union was launched in 2007. 2010 saw the creation of the United Nations-African Union Joint Task Force on Peace and Security.
The UN Office to the African Union was established in 2010 and progressively strengthened to enhance the strategic partnership. The Office of the Special Adviser on Africa played a major role in enhancing the coordinated integrated support of the UN system for Africa and mobilizing international support for African objectives.
“Regional organizations now occupy a central place in the international architecture of security. Therefore, they are perceived in their respective regions, as key actors in security. This reality, more than anywhere else, is clear in Africa,” Tete Antonio, Permanent Observer of the African Union to the United Nations told the meeting.
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AU pushing efforts to realize African continental trade area

ADDIS ABABA (Xinhua) — A senior official of the African Union (AU) has underlined the need for AU member states to act quickly to move forward the agenda of realizing continental free trade (CFTA) in Africa.
Fatima Haram Acyl, AU Commissioner for Trade and Industry, made the remark on Monday during the opening of the First Ministerial Meeting of the Specialized Technical Committee on Trade, Industry and Minerals at the headquarters of the pan-African bloc in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa.
The two-day meeting, which was preceded by session of experts, has been organized under the theme, “Promoting regional integration through trade and inclusive and sustainable industrial development in Africa.”
Recalling that the AU summit in June 2015 launched the CFTA negotiations in commitment to the realization of CFTA by 2017, the AU Commissioner called for speedy action to ensure the ambitious agenda of the continent on CFTA.
“We have an ambitious agenda before us. It is therefore incumbent on us to ensure the effective delivery of this target. We should therefore be prepared to provide the necessary guidance bearing in mind the overall goal of One Africa, One Market, in line with the aim and objectives of the Abuja Treaty,” she said.
“As a result of the foregoing, we can agree that it’s time for us to act and act quickly. It’s time to move forward our Agenda,” she added.
In his statement made through a representative, Abdalla Hamdok, Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), noted that the realization of African CFTA would be a major step forward for economic integration via boosting intra-African trade.
CFTA in goods alone would lead to an increase in intra-African trade of around 55 billion U.S. dollars or 60 percent of its current level, said Hamdok.
“If this is complemented by Africa taking trade facilitation measures that reduce trade costs by half, these increases would be even greater,” he said.       Trade in services is also included in the negotiations for the CTFA, he said, Africa’s service sector accounted for around 1.2 trillion dollars of Africa’s gross domestic product in 2014.
If Africa reduces barriers to trade services between its countries, it could increase integration of economies through higher cross-border flows of services within the continent, he noted.
Jean Bakole, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Regional Director, has called for appropriate policies, including that of industrial, to foster regional integration and intra-Africa trade and boost infrastructure.
The ministers are expected to deliberate on issues related to the CFTA and ongoing negotiations on it that they report on the progress on the CFTA at coming AU summit in July Kigali, Rwanda.
Source: Coast Week

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