At a ceremony on Monday to
commission the permanent secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area
(AfCFTA), Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo and Moussa Faki Mahamat,
chairperson of the AU Commission, reiterated the importance of the body to the
continent’s economic transformation agenda.
“The economic integration of Africa will lay strong foundations for an Africa
beyond aid. Africa’s new sense of urgency and aspiration of true self-reliance
will be amply demonstrated by today’s ceremony,” Akufo-Addo said.
Ghana was selected as the venue for the headquarters by African leaders during
a Summit of AU Heads of states in Niamey in July last year, to launch the
implementation phase of the agreement, which is expected to spur regional trade
among member countries. Currently, 54 states have signed on to AfCFTA, out of
which 28 have ratified.
President Akufo-Addo appealed to member states that have not ratified to do so
before the next AU summit in December, “to pave the way for the smooth
commencement of trading from 1 January 2021.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the importance of the success of the
AfCFTA, the Ghanaian president said. “The destruction of global supply chains
has reinforced the necessity for closer integration amongst us so that we can
boost our mutual self-sufficiency, strengthen our economies and reduce our
dependence on external sources,” he said.
AfCFTA, the world’s largest free trade area, has the potential to transform the
continent with its potential market of 1.2 billion people and combined GDP of
around $3 trillion across the 54-member states of the AU. Mahamat said the
opening of the secretariat marked a milestone in the vision of Africa’s
founding founders for continental integration.
Wamkele Mene, the first Secretary-General of the AfCFTA, said
the agreement offered an opportunity for Africa to confront the significant
trade and economic development challenges: market fragmentation, small national
economies, over-reliance on primary commodity exports, narrow export base, lack
of export specialization, under-developed regional value chains and high
regulatory and tariff barriers to trade.
“We have to take action now. We have to take action to dismantle the colonial
economic model that we inherited,” Mene reiterated.
The African Development Bank Group provided a $5 million institutional support
grant to the AU towards the establishment of the AfCFTA secretariat which is
located in an ultra-modern office complex in the central business district of
the Ghanaian capital.
“The African Development Bank congratulates the AU/AfCFTA on the investiture of
the Secretariat hosted by Ghana on 17 August 2020.The Bank is delighted to be
associated with this groundbreaking, game-changing, transformational
continental initiative in furtherance of the objective to create the Africa we
want,” said Solomon Quaynor, the Bank’s Vice-President for the Private Sector,
Infrastructure and Industrialization.
“Our support to the AfCFTA is in keeping with the Bank’s role of continental
leadership in helping to build special-purpose vehicles that are critical to
the successful implementation of crucial institutions to accelerate Africa’s
economic development objectives,” Quaynor added.
The event also featured virtual goodwill remarks from AU Chairman, President
Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, and Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou.
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