African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement, Post Covid-19 Considerations

On 30th May 2020, the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (“AfCFTA”) entered into force. AfCFTA is one of the continent’s most ambitious treaties as it seeks to integrate, diversify, and industrialize African economies by capitalizing on the combined population of 1.3 billion people and a GDP of about USD 3.4 trillion. However, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the year 2020 seems to have undermined the achievement of this objective. For instance, the implementation of the AfCFTA was pushed back from 1st July 2020 to 1st January 2021. It is yet to be fully implemented.

Additionally, African economies are estimated to have retracted by 2.1% due to a decrease in global demand for African exports and global supply chain interruptions. With Africa still facing limited trade volumes, the AfCFTA offers an opportunity for African countries to explore new markets. However, significant challenges such as the disparity in implementation of AfCFTA’s objective of removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers remain.

Please join us on 13th October 2022 (3:00 PM – 4:15 PM EAT) as we host a webinar that will examine the challenges facing the implementation of the AfCFTA, as African economies recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.