Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have been urged to collaborate and embrace the tenets of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to overcome trade barriers.
The call was made by the Chief of Staff of the AfCFTA Secretariat, Mr. Silver Ojakol, on behalf of the Secretary-General, H. E. Wamkele Mene, at the 2023 Regional Integration Issues Forum (RIIF) in Accra, Ghana.
“If African countries came together and achieved just one percentage increase in trade amongst themselves, we would earn 70 billion dollars, which will be higher than the 58 billion dollars given by donors as development assistance,” he noted.
He emphasized the importance of the AfCFTA for SMEs, noting that the agreement is not for big corporations. “The agreement was designed and framed for the women and young men who on a daily basis face challenges across the continent when crossing neighbouring borders to trade in goods and services,” he said.
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The RIIF is a sensitization mechanism and an interface platform for stakeholders involved in regional integration and continental trade initiatives.
The 2023 RIIF is aimed at increasing awareness of the AfCFTA and its benefits for SMEs, as well as strengthening SMEs’ capacity to engage in intra-African trade.
The two-day SME conference was under the theme ‘Breaking Business Barriers for AfCFTA Acceleration’.
It was organized by the Centre for Regional Integration Africa (CRIA), the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), in collaboration with the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, and support from Afreximbank.
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