Posted on October, 19, 2016 at 11:17 am
Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC) Country Director, Julius Wambura, has called on a change of attitude among businesses for the prosperity of the continent and its people. He recently called on businesses to fully exploit the available trade and commercial opportunities in African markets.
Wambura gave his take on things recently at a workshop on Rules of Origin for the proposed Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) signed in 2015 by the heads of state and governments from the EAC, SADC and COMESA bloc.
According to him, African economies have many goods and services that can be exchanged among themselves. He said the current volume of trade was not only small but also detrimental to growth and development prospects.
The unimpressive figures show that only 13.5 per cent of EAC trade is transacted within the economic bloc, while the level of intra-COMESA and SADC business is 11.3 per cent and 31.2 per cent respectively.
“Tanzanians should strive to trade with fellow Africans and take advantage of the 632 million people in the continent by selling grains and other products because the demand for them is high in the continent,” Wambura told Smart Money.
He said EAGC will soon present proposals to the government on how Tanzania can meaningfully benefit from the TFTA. The organization will
also draw a list of policies, rule and regulations hindering cross-border trade that require to be amended.
He said TFTA is the largest free trade area in Africa stretching from South Africa to Egypt. It represents more than 626 million people in 26 countries, making it bigger than both the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Its combined GDP is over US$1.6 trillion, over half of the economic output of the entire continent. TFTA promises to boost regional integration in Africa, currently the least integrated continent in the world.
Wambura said intra-African trade challenges include poor infrastructure such as roads many of which are impassable during rainy seasons. He called for interventions to improve infrastructure to help businesspeople transport their goods more easily and reduce the costs of doing business as well as improving physical connectivity in the region.
Source: IPP Media