Minister of Trade and Industry, Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen
The African Goose Summit 2020 has urged entrepreneurs and the business community to take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) to scale up performance when fully operational.
According to the CEO of Spektra Global, organiser’s of the summit, William Evans Halm, the overall agenda of the policy must be explored to reflect the total meaning of the agreement.
Speaking to Class FM after the African Goose Summit 2020 in Accra, Mr. Halm urged small and micro enterprises to take advantage of AfCFTA.
“You must know what's contained in the agreement, partner others towards the implementation of Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement", he said.
Contributing to the debate, Country Senior Partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers Vish Ashiagbor, urged government to focus on cross border taxation and its potential implementation challenges as well as a stable legal environment with well-defined rules that offers legal certainty and expected benefits of the AfCFTA.
According to him, Africa's trade with the rest of the world shows that total exports is averaged to be US$760 billion within the period of 2015 to 2017.
African exports to destinations outside Africa ranged from 80% to 90% for the period of 2000 to 2017.
Intra-Africa exports were only 16.6% of total exports in 2017, compared with 68.1% in Europe, 59.4% in Asia, 55% in America and 7% in Oceania.
“I think everybody participating in Africa Continental Free Trade Area needs to look at harmonisation of regulations, standards and legal framework, the level of consistency and certainty as well as operational challenges to maximise profits”, he explained.
African Goose Summit 2020 was organised by Spektra Global, Vanguard Assurance and other partners intended to devise ways to derive prospects from African Continental Free Trade Agreement.
It is anchored on the agenda to speed up access to single market and movement of goods and services within 55 countries on the African Continent.
The agreement which is expected to be fully implemented, July, 2020 will scale up trading activities and business transactions in Africa.
The priority service sectors of the agreement including transport, communication, tourism, financial and business services.
