For African countries to benefit immensely from the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), governments on the continent need to invest into local firms to build their capacities, Coordinator of the Third World Network Africa, Dr. Yao Graham has said.

Speaking at the UPSA Law School Africa Roundtable, the Trade Analyst said despite the free trade agreement being a wonderful deal, other agreements signed between member countries and non-African countries presents a challenge to the continent.

The roundtable discussion focused on the value chain difficulties expected to dominate the implementation of the AfCFTA.

According to Dr. Graham, the dominance of foreign firms on the continent although good, but will not give more opportunity to the main target group of people that is Africans to enjoy the trade agreement.

“Africa has already opened up to the world and the economies are dominated by transnational firms from outside the continent. So in liberalizing intra African trade, we have to carefully support the indigenous firms and build regional, national and continental value chains” he told Joy Business.

Speaking at the same programme on the theme “African Continental Free Trade Agreement, the environment and sustainable value chains”, Chief Technical Advisor at the AfCFTA Secretariat, Prudence Sebahizi assured that the benefits of AfCFTA will overcome the other petty trade agreements on the continent.

With support from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, the Law School is confident that the event will serve as an educational platform for many stakeholders.

Also on the panel was the ACCA Director for Africa, Jamil Ampomah, who believes that as an accounting body, the association has a crucial role to play in ensuring that the trade deal becomes successful.

He pledged his outfits support to the secretariat and the Law school to help in educating market players about the deal.