African free trade deal suffers set back due to coronavirus—Wamkele

The planned launch of Africa Free Trade agreement for July !, 2020 has suffered a set back as organisers are forced to put it on hold as a result of the out break of coronavirus. Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the African Continental Free Trade Area disclosed this during a conference call. He said “It is obviously not possible to commence trade as we had intended on 1 July under the current circumstances”.

The 55-nation continental free-trade zone would, if successful, create a $3.4 trillion economic bloc with 1.3 billion people across Africa and constitute the largest new trading bloc since the World Trade Organisation formed in 1994. Mene said he was confident the deal would still go forward. “The political commitment remains, the political will remains to integrate Africa’s market and to implement the agreement as was intended,” he said.

Mene said that as African governments do not have the firepower to launch the same type of economic stimulus packages that the United States and Europe are putting forward to mitigate the economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic, intra-African trade could serve the same purpose. “That’s our stimulus package. That’s how we’re going to get back on track as Africa.”