Ghana has won the bid to host the secretariat of Africa’s biggest free trade area.
The new agency under the African Union will have 500 different staff from across the continent, all working in Ghana.
Africa Feeds sources in Niger said the final crowning of this will be done on Sunday at the AU general assembly.
44 African leaders in March 2018 signed onto the world’s largest free trade area at a gathering in Rwanda with countries like Nigeria and Uganda missing out for the mean time.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) with 55 African Union (AU) members would mean the African Union would have a cumulative gross domestic product of US$2.5 trillion.
African countries only do about 16 per cent of their business with each other with the African Union hoping to change this trend.
The ACFTA is a major project of the AU’s long-term development plan Agenda 2063, which emphasis the need to ease trade and travel across the continent.
AU member states last year agreed to a common air transport market that could drive down air fares, as well as plans for visa-free travel for Africans across the continent.
The trade deal could create thousands of jobs for the continent’s jobless youth.
One of Africa’s super powers, Nigeria this week finally agreed to sign unto the continent’s largest free trade deal.
African Trade analyst, Emmanuel Bensah told Africa Feeds that the development is “Incredibly significant. This new AU agency creates in Accra a new diplomatic capital responsible for promoting intra-African trade.”
He adds that “in addition, it will create immense opportunities and jobs for service-providers befitting of any diplomatic capital worldwide, such as Brussels; Geneva; New York.”
Source: Africafeeds.com
