‘Budding enterprises to expand with AfCFTA’

The take-off of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) offers African entrepreneurs the opportunity to tap into a $2.5 trillion global market, the Association of African Start-ups (TAAS) has said.

President of TAAS Just Ibe stated this in Lagos during the launch of the TAAS Learning Hub aimed at equipping African entrepreneurs with the requisite skills and knowledge to take their businesses to the next level.

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The group also said it will empower 5,000 entrepreneurs this year to unleash a generation of small and medium business owners who, it said, are the drivers of any economy.

Ibe said TAAS has put in place a system and structures to ensure African entrepreneurs maximize the benefits of the AfCFTA to transform the economy of the African continent.

“So this is a wake-up call to any entrepreneur who is seated in our corner and said, ‘I am just a small business owner, I am just a start-up’.

“I challenge you because Africa is waiting for you to take a step because if you don’t take a step, you stay where you are. We are where we are because so many of us have to a very large extent been minding our businesses.”

The CEO of TAAS, Omayemi Sage, disclosed that 5000 entrepreneurs would be trained over a period of one year, saying any nation desirous of developing must raise a generation of entrepreneurs.

“And we are saying that there is indeed a lot to be done in this continent. We should step out of our comfort zone,” she said.