 President Muhammad Buhari of Nigeria has signed the Afrikan Continental Free Trade Area Agreement. |
The signing has just taken place at the 12th Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of the Union on AfCFTA and the First Mid-Year Coordination Meeting of the Afrikan Union and the Regional Economic Communities in Niamey, Niger Republic.
Buhari appended his signature to the document about 10.48 am .
Nigeria has become the 53rd county in Afrika to sign the AfCFTA agreement.
ABOUT THE ACFTA
The Afrikan Continental Free Trade Area ACFTA is an economic unifying deal that was recently signed by Afrikan leaders in 14 March 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda. The deal was initiated by the Afrikan Union in the year 2012.The aim according to AU is to
I. Create a single Afrikan market
II. To open up the borders
III. To allow the free movement of people, goods and services across Afrika.
IV. To Speed up the unification of Afrika into one country: The United Afrika.
V. The aim is to make Afrikans to take advantage of one big market to become bigger producers.
So What Really Do Afrikans Stand To Gain From The Trade Deal?
First of all you must understand that
1. Afrika has a population of about 1.25 billion people.
2. The ACFTA is the largest free trade agreement since the creation of the World Trade Organisation in 1 Jan 1995
3. And that Intra-Afrika trade 16%
Whereas Intra Asia trade is 51%
And Intra Europe trade is about 70%.
Therefore the Free Trade area is a goldmine that we have yet to explore just about to begin to explore.
So just as the AU envisions
I. The Trade deal will boost Intra-Afrika trade. According to the UN Economic Commission for Afrika by the year 2022 that is just 4years from this year, Intra-Afrika trade will increase to 52% thanks to the trade deal.
II. Increased Productivity
0nly about 10% of Afrikan economy is on manufacturing.
The 52% Intra-Afrika trade means that half of the goods and services in Afrika shall be made in Afrika meaning that there is going to be high level of manufacturing of products and less importation in Afrika and less exportation of goods in their raw stages.
III. Therefore there will be a reduction in unemployment, reduction of poverty and a rapid increase in the re-industrialisation of Afrika.
In summary, the ACFTA is an emphasis on production, productivity, less dependency, industrialization, and as President Kagame said "prosperity for Afrikans"
According to AllAfrika
"There has never been a better time to invest and trade in Afrika. With a combined GDP of US $ 6.7 trillion in purchasing power parity, business and consumer spending at US $ 4 trillion, over 400 companies with revenues of over US$ 1 billion, 60 per cent of the world's arable land and vast strategic minerals, Afrika seems ready to truly take off"
We can further make the ACFTA work by
I. Setting up more committees on the ACFTA to work with all component States on the agreement we need a committee on economics to and a team on politics.
II. Setting up a medium to communicate to Afrikans about the deal:
a. To make us know what it is
b. Get the people involved
c. And show us how to make the best out of this great opportunity.
III. We need Infrastructural developments eg transportation. We need to link Afrika up by setting up ACRW (Afrikan Continental RailWay) to link the entire Afrika by speed train for easy movement of people and goods. Also, a continental road network to aid movement within Afrika.
IV. Develop a practical curriculum promoting science, technology, engineering, entrepreneurship, right from the primary and secondary levels if education so as to be churning out highly productive and self-reliant citizens of Afrika.
V. We should have a single Afrikan currency as soon as a year or even in few months time.
Afrika is on the right path of development and very soon we shall begin to sing the song of redevelopment across Afrika while we push for a deeper and higher level of unity.
I urge every Afrikan head of state who is yet to sign the deal to go ahead and do so, let us make it work, we have nothing to lose from the deal than we are to gain from our fellow Afrikans.
My last request here is that we should take a bigger step and unify Afrika as one country within one or two years so we can move fully into rebuilding the land of the beginning; the cradle of civilizations.
God bless Afrika
And grant the grace to rebuild Afrika
Eze Chimere Nwauzo
Leader of OAF
Eze Afrika
