Intra Africa trade: FG consulting on AfCFTA agreement ― Osinbajo

THE Vice President of the country, Professor Yemi Osibajo, has assured the African community that the Federal Government is currently pursuing a rigorous domestic and wide consultative process with all stakeholders in the public and private sector on the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

At the Africa Trade Forum 2018, at the weekend in Lagos, with the theme ‘AfCFTA Ratification and Implementation, with the theme: “A Game Changer for African Economies, held in Lagos, Prof. Osinbajo noted the government recognised the benefits of promoting intra-African trade for development, job creation, poverty reduction and modernization, thus its multi-levelled consultation.

Noting that the AfCFTA is probably the most significant pan-African trade agreement in this generation, the Vice President stated that Nigeria, being “possibly the largest market in Africa today, is most likely to benefit the most or lose the most from the implementation of the agreement.”

Osinbajo further explained that in response to the nationwide stakeholders engagement on October 22, President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated and established the Presidential Committee on Impact and Readiness Assessment on the African Continental Free Trade Area, adding that the Presidential Committee was now at work, in full steam, and a final report would be sent up to the President in 10 weeks.

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“I believe that most African policymakers would accept these feedbacks from Nigeria as having wider validity, especially as having some validity with their own economy as well.

“As Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Management Team, I am pleased to read and hear that fellow African countries consider Nigeria’s domestic consultative process with Stakeholders as an applicable model.”

Earlier in his welcome remarks, Okechukwu Enelamah, Honourable Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment, said the Africa Trade Forum was the first of its kind, noting that it has been arranged at the right time as it was considered a continuation of our series of stakeholder engagements on the AfCFTA.

He explained that the purpose of the forum was to deepen outreach, expand capacity, dispel the myths and the fiction, deepen consensus and accelerate the hard work of mainstreaming the technical vocabulary of trade policy into mainstream development plans.