Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, Wamkele Mene, says his outfit will launch the African Trade Gateway for small and medium enterprises in Africa.

This, he believes, will support young entrepreneurs in their quest to make their businesses thrive and take advantage of the secretariat.

At a media briefing for the 10th meeting of the council of ministers he opined that the African Trade Gateway will provide the needed information for SMEs across the continent to access the activities of the secretariat.

He said the initiative will be a tool for small business connectivity with information ranging from marketing strategy, due diligence of the marketing partners on the continent and the pan African payment and settlement system.

"The practical steps we can take for small and medium enterprises is in the next few month we will launch the African Trade Gateway which will have a range of information for small and medium enterprises; there will be due diligence information”, he said

Commenting on the financing of young entrepreneurs, he stated that, engagement are ongoing to ensure that banks provide soft loans to young entrepreneurs.

"We are in discussions with the African Development Bank on what kind of financing can be given to these SMEs”, he pointed out.

On the state of the single African air transport market agreement, he explained that, only 30 countries have signed the agreement on the continent which he described as not encouraging.

"Only 30 countries have signed the agreement which is unfortunate and more need to be done to get more countries sign the agreement to boost intra-Africa trade"

The AfCFTA aims at accelerating intra-African trade and boosting Africa’s trading position in the global market by strengthening Africa’s common voice and policy space in globally.