By Nathaniel Nartey
The Africa Continental Free Trade Area, AFCFTA, has made giant strides in ensuring effective intra Africa trade following a number of ground breaking decisions made by the Council of Ministers of Trade of AU member states. These include a One-billion-dollar Adjustment Fund and a 1.2 Billion Automobile Fund.
Secretary General of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area, Wamkele Mene said the Automobile Fund will assist African Countries to exceed the target of manufacturing at least four point five million vehicles annually to match the growing population.
He made this known at a media briefing in Accra after a two-day meeting of the Council of Ministers of Trade of AU members States in Accra.
“The ACFTA Adjustment Fund is intended for those countries who in a short term will experience revenue loses as a result of reducing or eliminating their tariffs. It is an initial amount of $1bn that has been made available for this purpose by Afreximbank. Our studies indicate that we will need between $6n-$7bn to pluck the gap that will be created by revenue loses in the short term”.
On the Automobile Fund, Mr. Mene said “it’s a fund of about $1.2bn to assist countries who want to participate on the Automobile value chain. We the Automotive sector as a strong driver for Africa’s industrialization”.
Chairperson of the Council of Ministers of Trade, Ebrahim Patel explained the importance of decisions taken to increase the number of products to be approved by the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement for trading.
“Over the last 2 years the negotiators and Ministers have been meeting frequently and concluded with a package. We now have defined what constitutes the minimum African Content …… product to be traded between countries on the Continent on the basis of preferences. That is a big breakthrough. “
The implementation of these decisions is subject to approval at the next AU summit in Addis Ababa.
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