The third edition of the Intra-Africa Trade Fair (IATF 2023) which comes off in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, has been launched in Accra, following the success of the 2021 fair which clocked some US$42.1billion worth of deals.
At a press conference to officially unveil the upcoming fair, the Managing Director of Afreximbank’s IATF initiative, Kanayo Awani, recounted the success of the previous one and the expectations for IATF 2023.
“We had a huge and staggering participation level of 32,541, we closed 542 transactions valued at US$42.1billion in trade, investments and financing deals.There have been several testimonies from participants who secured deals at both national and individual levels in the fields of food security, procurement and supply services for infrastructure et al,” she shares.
She adds: “We expect this trend to continue as we move to the third edition. The stage is all set that IATF is now the go-to platform for connecting businesses, buyers and sellers and investors to opportunities across the continent. It is now a very tabled platform for integrating the public and private sector.”Chairman of the Governing Council of IATF 2021 and former president of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, says the upcoming event will focus very much on small and medium-sized enterprises.
“We particularly want to encourage SMEs because they are the backbone of African economies,” he notes.Addressing the need for the media to be carried along the AfCFTA journey, the dignitaries acknowledged that the media’s involvement and support in propagating the agenda for intra-Africa trade were critical.
“We all have to do our parts to push the implementation of the AfCFTA but as a Secretariat, we will do more to ensure that we have an advocacy platform to help create awareness about the agreement which is very technical and complex,” said Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the AfCFTA Secretariat.He adds: “This agreement was drafted by trade lawyers and experts and therefore out of reach to the ordinary person; we have to make sure that it’s understandable and easily accessible and the best way to do that is through the media.”
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