The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has highlighted the need for more investments in crucial infrastructure by African governments and businesses to facilitate trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area, (AfCFTA).
Dr Bawumia noted that critical investment in infrastructure will help ensure continued productivity and sustainable economic growth on the continent.
Speaking at the maiden edition of the Africa Prosperity Dialogues dubbed “Kwahu Summit” 2023, Dr Bawumia also called on African governments to implement concrete actions to ensure that Africa achieves the needed industrialization on the continent.
“Like the vision of our forebears, AfCFTA has set the stage for Africa’s industrialisation drive. But it will take concrete, strategic actions by governments and businesses on the continent, the right mix of policies, and a greater sense of purpose for more intra-Africa trade to happen to support economic diversification and the much-needed industrialisation on the continent.”
He also noted that while the last decades have seen some positive investments, there is a need for additional resources to finance the ‘arteries for trade’ – physical infrastructure such as roads, rail, energy and digital infrastructure including data centres to facilitate the digital transformation and financial integration of markets.
These investments, he reiterated, will be critical to success for the AfCFTA: “It will take concrete, strategic actions by governments and businesses on the continent; the right mix of policies, a greater sense of purpose for more robust intra-African trade must happen to support economic diversification and the continent’s much-needed industrialisation”.
Equally important, he said, is the unleashing of what he termed ‘productive capacities’ – which can be achieved by creating platforms for knowledge-brokerage and access to information about critical products and services on the continent.
This, Dr. Bawumia added, will allow some 445 million small businesses across the continent to plug into the value chains of these mega-industries. “We need to develop Africa into a manufacturing zone that will facilitate the trade of value-added products. These, in my view, will be critical to leapfrog Africa’s industrialisation and bring the enormous socio-economic benefits,” he said.
Again, the Vice-President emphasised the need to mobilise finance and investments across the continent, saying Africa needs between US$130billion and US$170billion annually to bridge its infrastructure gap and generate sustainable growth at 5 percent per annum or more.
This, he explains, can only be realised through private sector participation.
The founder and Chairman of Africa Prosperity Network, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko – organiser of the Africa Prosperity Dialogues, said AfCFTA has the all-important goal of turning Africa into the world’s largest single market.
“This, we believe, is the biggest promise this century for the prosperity of Africa and the African. It is potentially, the world’s most exciting economic project this century. And this is what brings us here now,” he said.
He added that: “For our collective ownership and shared benefit, it must be owned by businesses in Africa. The combined voices of Africa’s businesses – big and small – must be heard and felt. The aggregate value of enterprises and industries across Africa must be networked, coordinated and impactfully leveraged”.
On his part, Secretary-General of the AfCFTA, Wamkele Mene, said transforming the continent should be the foremost thing in the minds of governments and businesses in Africa, as predicted by the World Bank.
He said all the necessary legal instruments required by traders and businesses on the continent in order to take advantage of the AfCFTA have been established. “I see no reason why our continent cannot be the global economic force that it should have been 60 or 70 years ago.”
The African Continental Free Trade Area is a flagship project of the African Union’s Agenda 2063, a blueprint for attaining inclusive and sustainable development across the continent over the next 50 years.
It aims to boost intra-African trade by providing a comprehensive and mutually beneficial trade agreement among the member states, covering trade in goods and services, investment, intellectual property rights and competition policy.
The maiden Africa Prosperity Dialogues also dubbed the Kwahu Summit, is a strategic platform where movers and shakers in the African economy will elevate the objectives of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) from ambition to real action.
The summit will be a focused annual event where African leaders from diverse areas of national endeavour will gather to discuss and share experiences on initiatives required for Africa to achieve the goal of shared prosperity and to review the Africa Agenda for Action.
