Africa’s AfCFTA free trade agreement takes baby steps

A handful of African companies have finally started shipping goods under the long-delayed AfCFTA free trade agreement. They are part of a new initiative to kick-start intra-African trade.

It’s been a long time coming, but several African nations have started trading a trickle of goods under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.

Kenya has shipped locally-made car and truck batteries as well as a consignment of Kenyan-grown tea to Ghana in the past months. Rwanda has also exported processed coffee beans to the West African nation.

“It’s a positive move,” said Nixon Paloma, Group Finance Officer at Associated Battery Manufacturers. The firm is one of only two companies in Kenya taking part in a pilot project called the Guided Trade Initiative.

The initiative gives companies dealing in certain products in selected countries support through the AfCFTA process. The idea is to test – and prove – that the AfCFTA system works and get intraregional trade finally rolling under AfCFTA. As well as Kenya, Rwanda, and Ghana, it includes Cameroon, Egypt, Mauritius, Tanzania, and Tunisia.

The world’s largest free trade area became operational with much fanfare on January 1, 2021. But the implementation of the single continental market has been delayed for several reasons, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the lack of agreement on the rules of origin for some product lines and the failure of 10 out of the 54 signatories to ratify it.