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Business News for Tuesday, October 27, 2020
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
2020-10-27
Chief Minister Dr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo has said that the success of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) depends on each African country having something to trade with the rest of the continent.
He said that while the free trade zone agreement is long overdue, African countries must emphasize manufacturing and adding value.
He said that while other intracontinental trade zones such as Europe and the Americas are recording annual trade volumes of 60% to 70% of total trade volume, intra-African trade is still a meager 2%, according to 2016/2017 figures.
“We have a long way to go for the agreement to work. We must work and trade with each other. Others are doing it at 70% and we at 2%. So we definitely need to do more, ”he said.
The Chief Minister spoke at the opening ceremony of the two-day Ghana Fourth International Trade and Finance Conference on Tuesday, October 27, 2020.
“This trading system [AfCFTA] it’s good, and trading normally means you must have something to sell … If we have continental free trade and Ghana doesn’t have any products to sell, then we’ll be a bystander.
“And when we talk about intra-African trade, we cannot sell raw materials. Ghana has cocoa, Cote d’Ivoire has cocoa, we are not going to sell cocoa to Cote ‘d’Ivoire, ”he said.
Dr. Osafo-Maafo’s views on how the AfCFTA can be successful are similar to those of Economist Dr. Lord Mensah from the University of Ghana Business School.
Dr. Lord Mensah told GhanaWeb that while the thinking behind the AfCFTA is very good, he is struggling to see that the continental free trade agreement, which is expected to start in January 2021, achieves its goals.
The Economist told GhanaWeb that many African countries do not seem to have a particular product with which they can enter other African markets.
“For a successful AfCFTA, countries must also have a product that they are interested in taking to other parts of the continent,” said Dr. Mensah.
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