African leaders and Ministers of Trade will be signing the document for the Continental Free Trade zone among African countries by March 2018.

This will be the beginning of the implementation process for the Trade agreement between African countries which is expected to improve intra-continental trade in Africa.

Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Carlos Ahenkorah disclosed this at the 5th Edition of the Crystal Ball Africa in Accra.

He said, “As far as I’m concerned we are nearing that completion point and as I said, latest by end of March leaders of Africa are supposed to sign this document into action and by 2020 we should see a remarkable development where we will be heading towards the 2063 achievement of the goals.”

The continental free trade zone in Africa is a trade agreement that seeks to promote industrialization of export oriented goods on the continent by removing some trade barriers.

Mr Ahenkorah said, “Basically it’s a programme being adopted by African leaders to collapse all trade barriers within the African continent to have one big continental market to improve trade and collaboration between.

He highlighted what Ghana stands to benefit from the agreement: “Infact it is the best thing that could have happen to us as far as I am concerned formally coming from the Trade Ministry because you can see for example in Ghana we have a very limited and closed market space, where you can’t have more than 25million people in Ghana to sell products to.”

“We are looking at a situation that when the CFTA comes into being we are going to have about 1.3 billion market space for people to be able to showcase their products and trade between other African countries,” he said.

The Deputy Minister also assured the agreement will not affect the fight against foreign retail in the Ghanaian Market.

Hope of increased foreign investment

A key motivation for the establishment of freer trade within Africa is that freer trade and more harmonized markets generate a more compelling case for foreign direct investment.

The less businesses have to deal with superfluous paperwork, long delays at borders, and a multiplicity of regulations and officials, the better the business case for investment.