Take advantage of AfCFTA prospects — Prof. Abotsi

The Dean of the University for Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) Law School, Professor Kofi Abotsi, has said the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a major economic integration initiative that will have an impact on employment, as well as the productivity and development of member countries.

He stressed the importance of having conversations to understand the manifold implications of the regional trade pact so that various actors could take advantage of the prospects.
“Since its implementation, there have been a number of guided trade initiatives designed to get AfCFTA off the ground and these have achieved success levels”.

“However, one fundamental thing is that there still appears to be some disconnect at the top policy level where the AfCFTA is being implemented and how the regular folks on the street doing business can take advantage of the AfCFTA,” Prof. Abotsi stated.

Speaking at an international conference on the Future of African Trade and the AfCFTA in Accra, he indicated that some of the challenges were knowledge-based where some business actors, trade practitioners and people who were involved in trade did not know how to take advantage of the AfCFTA arrangement.

The Dean of the UPSA Law School, therefore, said the government must put facilitative platforms together to get entities, implementers and experts talking about  AfCFTA. “The government must provide the facilitation for appropriate conversations but the private sector must equally be interested knowing that it is the biggest beneficiary or loser in the event that they do not take full or holistic advantage,” Prof. Abotsi said.

Conference

Dubbed “Open for business: The AfCFTA, Africa Trade and Innovation conference”, participants discussed and explored how AfCFTA has evolved as well as its challenges. The conference brought together key stakeholders on a single platform to delve deeper into the implementation challenges and protocol of the AfCFTA.

They were from academia, the private sector business, members of the judiciary, civil society and students, among others. The two-day conference was hosted by the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Law School, in collaboration with the German international cooperation, GIZ, under its programme support to the AfCFTA.

It was on the theme: “Taking Stock of the Implementation of the AfCFTA: Continental Efforts, State Commitment, and Private Sector Involvement”.

Private sector

Prof. Abotsi stressed that it was crucial for the private sector to be interested in AfCFTA since they were the biggest beneficiaries of the AfCFTA success, and the biggest loser if they were not prepared and ready.

“The percentage of intra-African trade is around 15 per cent and the global average is over 54 per cent so that tells you that Africa has already been lagging behind,” he said. The Dean of the UPSA Law School stated that for many years of stagnation, it was important that African countries move with speed because the world was ahead.

“Compared to the other continents, Africa is the one that has the least trade among themselves and it’s worse with Africa's trade in the world,” he said. He said that the total percentage of Africa’s contribution to global trade was three per cent, for a continent of 54 countries with a concentration of natural resources.

Prof. Abotsi added that there was the need for a bold initiative to push forward the agenda of AfCFTA. The German Ambassador to Ghana, Daniel Krull, lauded the organisers of the conference and said such large continental trade blocs took time to materialise.

He proposed that African economies must make the best out of the AfCFTA.