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The African Union (AU) vowed to push through a continent-wide free trade agreement as it concluded the 36th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union, a two-day summit.
The 36th Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) Assembly convened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Saturday, with African leaders, UN officials, and leaders of various international organizations in attendance.
Leaders of the 55-nation bloc met in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, to discuss a slew of issues confronting the continent, including coups, conflict, and climate change.
The AU Assembly Summit focused on African integration, recovering from various health and socioeconomic crises, ensuring continental peace and security, socioeconomic development, and the representation of Africa in multilateral international institutions.
The bloc’s new chairman, Comoros President Azali Assoumani, stated that the leaders vowed to accelerate the implementation of a stalled trade agreement initiated in 2020.
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), which unites 54 of the 55 countries on a continent with 1.4 billion people with Eritrea as the lone holdout, is touted as the largest in global population terms.
Assoumani declared, “I will do all in my power to make this a reality.”
Just 15% of the commodities and services that African countries currently trade are with other African countries. By eliminating practically all tariffs by 2034, the AfCFTA seeks to increase that by 60%.
Implementation, however, has fallen far short of that objective due to obstacles like conflicts over tariff reductions and border closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The deal is “strategic” for the continent, according to AU Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat, but the infrastructure to support it is still lacking, with 600 million Africans without access to electricity.
On Saturday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that among its many challenges, Africa is dealing with a “dysfunctional and unfair global financial system” that denies many countries’ debt relief and concessional financing while charging them “extortionate” interest rates.
- The biggest business event in Africa, AfCFTA Business Forum, will take place in Cape Town from April 16th to 19th, 2023.
- The AfCFTA agreement was adopted and opened for signature on 21 March 2018 in Kigali and entered into force on 30 May 2019.
- The AfCFTA Agreement went into effect on January 1, 2021; however, no trade has yet taken place under the AfCFTA regime. By February 2023, 46 of the 54 signatories (85.2%) had deposited their ratification instruments.
