The success of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will be measured largely by its ability to change lives, reduce poverty and contribute to economic development in Africa. This is according to the ninth edition of the flagship Assessing Regional Integration in Africa report (ARIA IX) launched during the African Business Forum. Expounding on the report, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Secretary General Mukhisa Kituyi said that competition, investment and intellectual property rights are crucial requirements in the next phase of the agreement. He also urged the African business community to take ownership of the integration effort on the continent. The report highlights challenges facing regional integration which include limited energy and infrastructure development, insecurity and conflicts and limited financial resources among others. Going forward, the report says e-commerce is likely to be a significant driver and outcome of intra-African trade. “The public and private sectors are increasingly adopting e-commerce platforms. Governments deliver services through them, electronic marketplaces aggregate consumer and producer demand as well as trade-related services, traditional businesses have incorporated e-commerce into their business models and operations and individual entrepreneurs and small businesses use social media platforms to engage with market opportunities,” reads the report. Source: Capital Business

Rwanda parliament has ratified the 2015 Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) agreement, a market of three regional blocs. TFTA brings together country members of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East Africa Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community. The ratification was passed this Wednesday without going through the commission scrutiny but came with debate on its importance, fears of duplication of the recently launched African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) worth $3.4 trillion. TFTA consists of a US$1.2 trillion free trade area, incorporating 26 African nations, with a population of 632 million people. The overall aim of the TFTA is to remove barriers to trade and to ease the movement of people between its signatory nations. Minister of Trade and Industry, Soraya Hakuziyaremye who presented the bill said “This agreement is very important to our export market since it introduces our country to a much wider market as it includes the Southern Africa Development Community of which we are not member.” At first, some members of parliament were hesitant to endorse it on ground that the agreement may be just a duplication of the already existing AfCFTA. “I sense an issue of duplication here. We should be sure that we would not loose taxes to these agreements,” MP Frank Habineza said. For MP Ignacienne Nyirarukundo, the AfCFTA was enough. MP Christine Muhongayire backed the idea of her colleagues but advised that parliament takes its time to assess the deal in the commissions. “It’s advisable to...

Local manufacturers are likely to benefit immensely from a newly implemented Africa-wide trade pact that provides access to a bigger market for their goods. The African Continent Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) protocol, launched at the Africa Union summit in Niger on Sunday after five years of deliberations, provides a single market of goods and services for 1.2 billion people with an aggregate Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of over $2 trillion (Sh200 trillion). ELIMINATE DEFICIT The adoption of the historic 55-nation agreement makes the whole continent a single market. Protocols will be aligned such that a Kenyan farmer can export avocado to Egypt duty-free, just as a Rwandese will be able to buy cocoa from Ghana. Kenyan manufacturers and exporters are upbeat that the trading bloc will be a boon for the country’s trade. Export Promotion Council chief executive Peter Biwott said Africa-wide trade, if well planned, could double the country’s exports, thereby eliminating the Sh1.15 trillion gap between exports and imports. “We import [goods worth] Sh1.7 trillion and we export Sh613 billion. The deficit can be eliminated if we increase our manufacturing and export enterprises. We target to get our exports to the mark of Sh2.3 trillion,” said Mr Biwott. Robust plan The government, he said, has a robust plan to make export trade efficient for existing enterprises as they recruit and train new ones in collaboration with the county governments. This is in a bid to scale up the range of products besides improving the manufacturing sector as a...

The ceremony presided over by State Minister for Regional Affairs Philemon Mateke was held at Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Ministry in Kampala. Uganda’s High Commissioner to Tanzania said the Forum will be held in Dar es Salaam under the theme “Promoting bilateral trade and investment for growth and sustainable development.” The one-day private sector led event will be attended by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his Tanzanian counterpart John Pombe Magufuli. Kabonero further revealed that discussions and presentations will revolve around new and existing trade and investment opportunities in Uganda and Tanzania. He said the event will be preceded by a Joint Permanent Commission (JPC) of Ministers from both sides to resolve the existing trade barriers. The business forum comes against the backdrop of increased concerns by Ugandans that movement of people and goods especially between Mutukula and Dar es Salaam is hindered by dozens of checks by Tanzanian authorities. Uganda is determined to tap the Tanzanian market which has remained tricky for decades. The Tanzanian ambassador to Uganda said the construction of the standard gauge railway is underway with hopes of reaching Morogoro in the next few months. Thereafter, he said, the railway line will be extended to Mwanza. This would allow cargo movement from Dar to Mwanza before being loaded on water vessels on Lake Victoria enroute to Port Bell. The private sector is being encouraged to invest in water vessels to transport goods on Lake Victoria. Mateke said Uganda and Tanzania enjoy excellent cordial relations which the private...

Infrastructure investment is one of the key pillars of the Agenda 2063 and for this to be achieved financing of these projects is still the continent’s biggest challenge. Rwanda’s Finance Minister, Dr. Uzziel Ndagijimana at the Africa 50 Summit joins CNBC Africa for more Source: CNBC Africa

On November 30, 2019, the East African Community (EAC) will be celebrating 20 years of existence. Lest we forget, it was on November 30, 1999 at Sheikh Amri Abeid Memorial Stadium in Arusha, Tanzania that three heads of state of the Republic of Uganda, the Republic of Kenya and the United Republic of Tanzania, put pen to paper to sign the treaty reviving the EAC. Again, to jog our memory, the EAC had earlier been established from 1967 and it collapsed 10 years later in 1977. The current EAC 20-year journey has been remarkable, the inevitable challenges notwithstanding. The framers of the Treaty establishing the EAC envisaged a community that would be anchored on four pillars. This is aptly captured in Article 5 where, the Partner States undertook “to establish among themselves, a Customs Union, a Common Market, subsequently a Monetary Union and ultimately a Political Federation”. The Partner States have signed and ratified three protocols in line with these pillars. Implementation of these protocols is at various stages with a commendable degree of success. The pillars are very crucial forerunners to the ultimate goal of Political Federation. Thus, in 2017, the EAC heads of state agreed on Political Confederation as a transitional model to full East African Political Federation. All the Partner States have, accordingly, nominated experts and set up a team that is currently working on the confederation constitution. Uganda’s former Chief Justice Benjamin Odoki and Makerere University’s Prof Murindwa Rutanga are part of this team. When asked...

The AfCFTA will be governed by five operational instruments – which are – the Rules of Origin; the online negotiating forum; the monitoring and elimination of non-tariff barriers; a digital payments system and the African Trade Observatory. Each one was launched by different Heads of State and Government that included President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi of Egypt who is current Chairperson of the AU; Mr. Moussa Faki Makamat, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission; and President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger, who is the Champion of the AfCFTA. The launch ceremony included “a roll call of honour”, at which the 27 countries that have ratified the instruments of the AfCFTA were announced, and those that have signed but not yet ratified were mentioned. A commemorative plaque of the signing was also unveiled. The AfCFTA agreement was adopted and opened for signature on 21 March 2018 in Kigali. It entered into force on 30 May 2019, thirty days after having received the twenty-second instrument of ratification on 29 April, 2019 in conformity with legal provisions. “The speedy entry into force of the AfCFTA is a source of pride for all of us”, said AU Commission Chairperson Mr. Moussa Faki Mahamat. He described the free trade agreement as one of the instruments for continental integration in line with the objectives of the Abuja Treaty and the aspirations of Agenda 2063. Uganda’s preparations Uganda’s Trade Minister, Amelia Kyambadde last week said Uganda was prepared to reap from...

President Kagame and Chairperson of the East African Community (EAC) has said that the implementation of the new African free trade area is an important step forward towards the unification of Africa. He was speaking at the 12th Extraordinary Summit of the African Union on Sunday in Niamey capital of Niger where he joined other Heads of State and Government from across the continent to launch the operational phase of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). He thanked Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou for the role that his country and him have played in signing the free trade area pact and hosting the participants in Niger to launch it. “History will record the central role played by the President of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, in bringing us to this point. Our task now is to finalise the remaining negotiations and operational instruments in a timely manner,” he said. Also discussed at the summit were key issues including the removal of non-tariff barriers and regulations controlling trade liberalization, rules of origin and the development of a digital payment system. Meanwhile, Nigeria honored the promise it had made earlier on Tuesday by signing up to the pact. President Muhammadu Buhari noted that free trade must also be fair trade. “As African leaders, our attention should now focus on implementing the AfCFTA in a way that develops our economies and creates jobs for our young, dynamic and hardworking population,” he said. Gabon and Equatorial Guinea have also joined making the number of countries that...

The African Union expects the single market to boost trade among the 52 out of 55 member states who have signed the pact. The leaders are rooting for removal of intra-trade fragmentation among African Countries to attract small- and large-scale investments. Sunday in Niamey, Niger 52 out of 53 countries signed the AfCFTA agreement and according to AU the free trade pact will rally all the African people to promote the regional economic growth. The leaders are banking on the AfCFTA to create customs unions that will attract investors boosting the already existing eight regional economic blocs half of which have customs unions. The Sunday meeting saw Nigeria and Benin joined the list of signatories, leaving Eritrea as the only member of the African Union that have not signed into the historic accord. Niamey has become the trade zone headquarters for the AfCFTA while Ghana is the secretariat of the trade zone. The trade deal came into force on May 30, after the deposit of the required minimum 22 instruments of ratification by AU member states to the AU Commission. Now a total of 27 countries have deposited their AfCFTA ratification to the AU Commission after five more instruments of ratification including Gabon and the Equatorial Guinea deposited theirs on Sunday. The Chairperson of the African Union Commission said July 7th will be officially celebrated as the Day of African Integration. “July 7 from now on will be officially celebrated as the Day of African Integration in commemoration of today’s historic...

Unctad’s Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi spoke with JAMES ANYANZWA about the benefits and potential pitfalls of implementing the AfCFTA. July 7 marks the launch of the $3 trillion African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Is it time to pop the champagne? I would advise cautious optimism. The entry into force of the agreement establishing the AfCFTA is a landmark achievement after months of technical work and negotiations, and it should be celebrated. However, some critical issues (notably on tariff schedules and rules of origin) still remain.   The single African market is a great thing, but do you think its implementation will be smooth, given that regional economic blocs have been bogged down by trade disputes and poor implementation of Common Market protocols? It is unlikely that the implementation of an agreement of such breadth and depth will be smooth across the board. Challenges are bound to emerge. As a matter of fact, some have already surfaced in the course of negotiations and are being dealt with. What is important, however, is the need to step up to the challenge and harness the regional market for Africa’s structural transformation. But Africa is not starting from scratch. The experience and lessons learnt in the regional economic communities (RECs) can be leveraged to make the AfCFTA implementation smoother and more effective. One of the key advantages of a bloc like this is job creation. Is there a chance for job seekers from small economies to get employed in the more developed economies? Like many trade agreements,...