The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will come into force on Thursday creating a single African market of over one-billion consumers with a total GDP of more than $3-trillion.
“It puts Africa on track to create the largest free trade agreement by country & population since the 1995 creation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO),” said the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
In April, the AfCFTA Agreement secured the minimum threshold of 22 ratifications for it to enter into force thirty days after the deposit of the twenty-second deposit.
According to the AU and African Ministers of Trade will finalize on the supporting instruments to facilitate the launch of the operational phase of the AfCFTA during Extra-Ordinary heads of state and government summit on 7th July 2019.
The supporting instruments are rules of origin; schedules of tariff concessions on trade in goods; online non-tariff barriers monitoring and elimination mechanism; digital payments and settlement platform; and, African Trade Observatory Portal.
READ:
