Gov't To Hold Two-Day Conference On Implementation Of AfCFTA

Government will from Tuesday, October 20, hold a 2-day national conference on the implementation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement.

The conference which is being hosted jointly by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI), the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) and the National AfCFTA Coordination Office, in collaboration with the United Nations Economic Commission (UNECA) will be under the theme, “Empowering Ghanaian Businesses to harness the benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement under the framework of the National Export Development Strategy (NEDS).”

A statement from the Ministry on the subject said, “the National Conference will bring together relevant stakeholders from the private and public sectors in Ghana to discuss Government of Ghana's export development interventions aimed at empowering the private sector to harness the benefits of the AfCFTA”.

President Akufo-Addo is expected to open the 2-day conference and will use the opportunity to articulate Government's commitment to the AfCFTA and to the empowerment of the private sector to boost Ghana's trade with Continental Africa, with Trading scheduled to start on January 1st, 2021.

Participants will include CEOs in the Business Community, Senior Policy Makers, Parliamentarians, Academia, Representatives of Civil Society Organizations, Development Partners and the Media.

The first National Conference on AfCFTA was organised by Government in August 2019.

The AfCFTA agreement seeks to create a single African market of over a billion consumers with a total GDP of over $3 trillion; a figure that will make Africa the largest free trade area in the world.

There are currently 54 signatories to the trade agreement.

Signatory countries have committed to remove tariffs on 90 percent of goods and lift non-tariff barriers, among other things.

Ghana is hosting the AfCFTA secretariat in its capital Accra. The secretariat was officially handed over to the AU Commission in August 2020 by President Akufo-Addo.