Conducive and cost-effective transit corridor will drive single market—AfCFTA boss

To be able to double Intra Africa trade by the year 2035, there must be a conscious effort by regional trade stakeholders to promote secure and hassle-free corridors that will push the transit of goods across borders, Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the AfCFTA Secretariat indicates.

He tells the Single African Market that the numerous checkpoints and associated illegal practices that pervade most transit routes within the continent makes the transit business unattractive and uncompetitive, urging regional governments to pay attention to addressing those challenges.

“Between Abidjan and Lagos, a distance of 1200 kilometres, there are 37 checkpoints; it takes between 12 and 15 days for goods to transit from Abidjan to, Lagos.

That is uncompetitive, and it costs traders money, it makes the region inefficient. Other corridors also have similar challenges. As a secretariat, we are focusing on how we can boost the competitiveness of these trade corridors,” he discloses.

To the AfCFTA boss, traders will only be able to transact business across borders only if administrative burdens are reduced or eliminated and customs procedures are made more efficient, especially for young traders.

He mentions: “This is my ambition. I want to make sure that we have a trade agreement that accommodates all our business community, whether it is an informal trader with a small-medium enterprise a large corporation, everybody must see the benefits of this agreement.”

Mr. Mene stresses that measures that could facilitate seamless transit trading, such as the introduction of common systems, harmonized customs and transit procedures, have all been captured in the AfCFTA and they only have to be implemented.

“For every trade corridor in Africa that is competitive, it’s not to the benefit of that region but is to the benefit of the entire continent.

So, we want to work with individual governments along various corridors to make sure that all the aspirations that are in the AfCFTA that we translate into practice are on the ground,” the AfCFTA boss states.