Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development
Committee of Experts
Opening Remarks
by
Mr. Antonio Pedro
Deputy Executive Secretary (Programme Support)
12 March 2025 at the CR-1, UNCC
Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen
On behalf of the United Nations Under Secretary General and ECA Executive Secretary, Mr. Claver Gatete, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to this meeting.
The theme of this year’s conference “Advancing the implementation of the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area: proposing transformative strategic actions,” is timely and will provide a unique opportunity for us to discuss the role of the AfCFTA in accelerating Africa’s transformation and in strengthening the continent’s position in the global order.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We live in a time when the multilateral trading system is being challenged across the globe. We need to reduce the negative impacts of these headwinds, by leveraging the AfCFTA and promoting Afroshoring.
I meant to ask whether we must continue to import fertilizers and refined petroleum products from outside the continent when those are currently being produced locally?
Are there self-imposed barriers that we can remove quickly to make this happen soon?
Distinguished delegates,
The AfCFTA is often described as a mere free trade agreement. In fact, it is much more than that.
The AfCFTA is, at one and the same time, a development blueprint as well as a powerful political platform on which Africa can forge a common position on significant global issues of collective interest and assert them speaking in one voice.
An Africa that speaks with one voice is a strong Africa.
A prosperous Africa is a market for businesses all over the world. We must strengthen the fundamentals to make this happen.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Here at the ECA, we understood, from our early days, that for Africa to realize its boundless potential to the full, it would need to first overcome the limits of the small and fragmented economies it inherited from colonialism.
The AfCFTA is the product of over six decades of a relentless, if at times zigzagging, march towards closer regional and continental economic integration.
And ECA has been there from the beginning, every step of the way since before the establishment of the OAU in 1963.
Proud as we are of the journey so far, the task ahead remains significant and indeed critical. We are committed to continue supporting our member States to fully realize their regional integration journey that will culminate in the establishment of the African Economic Community.
We are convinced that in this integration process, the AfCFTA is a critical and transformational initiative.
Today, about 85% of Africa’s total export is directed to the rest of the world, with a strong concentration in primary commodities that account for over 60% of the total.
This contrasts with the composition of intra-African trade, although admittedly small (based on available statistics and not accounting for informal trade), which shows more promising features. Indeed, intra-African trade is more diversified, with the bulk of it made up of industrial products.
This is where the AfCFTA is expected to be a game changer.
ECA’s latest empirical assessment indicates that reducing tariffs and non-tariff barriers within the continent as per the agreed AfCFTA modalities could make intra-African trade 45% higher in 2045, compared with a situation without AfCFTA.
The lion’s share of these anticipated gains is expected to be felt in the agrifood and industrial sectors, thereby offering unprecedented opportunities for Africa’s industrialization and food security, and for the strengthening of product complementarity among our countries. This calls for a tightly
knitted trade and industrial policy implementation.
Our seminal 2015 Economic Report on Africa (ERA) titled “Industrialising through trade” examines how trade can serve as an accelerator of Africa’s industrialization and structural transformation, in the context of a rapidly changing regional and global economic environment.
Almost 10 years later, the tenets of ERA 2015 are still valid, especially the call for the implementation of strategic trade policies aimed at overcoming market and institutional failures that hinder export competitiveness on the continent, and the need to foster resource-driven industrialisation, value-addition, and the development of regional value chains.
That is why, catalysed by the AfCFTA, ECA has been at the forefront of the effort to promote value addition of our natural resources, such as through our work on the DRC-Zambia battery and electric vehicle transboundary special economic zone.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Moving forward, as we implement the AfCFTA Agreement at the level of each of its State Parties, we must also work on all the other associated bottlenecks that hold us back, some of which we have full control of, for they depend only on our political will to act.
For example, the ease with which Africans can move across borders within the continent plays an important role in the effort to realize the benefits of the AfCFTA to the full. Yet, the Protocol on the Free Movement of Persons that was adopted in January 2018 remains with just four ratifications to this day. Indeed, the fourth and so far, the last ratification, by Niger, took place on 5 July 2019. This is not acceptable!
With compelling evidence-based analysis, we must dispel the fears that are impeding us from acting. That is what we did to secure record ratifications of the Agreement establishing the AfCFTA! We can do the same for the ratification of all the protocols that are key to the successful implementation of the Agreement, including the Protocols on Investment, Competition, and Intellectual Property adopted in February 2023.
Beyond the protocols, and to make the AfCFTA work for Africa, we must accelerate the implementation of the 2012 Action Plan for Boosting Intra-Africa Trade (BIAT) in all its cluster areas, namely trade policy, trade facilitation, productive capacity, trade- related infrastructure, trade finance, trade information, and factor market integration. To this end, we must optimize the linkages between infrastructure development and economic opportunities in economic corridors and other platforms of agglomeration.
For example, our 2021 trade-decision modelling exercise aimed at assessing Cameroon’s export potential in the AfCFTA market revealed that for Cameroon, DRC is more trade-distant than China and the US, yet the distance from Yaoundé to Kinshasa is just 1,591.6 km while the estimated distance between Yaoundé and Beijing is 10,982 km!
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Another important study we did in 2022 on “Implications of the African Continental Free Trade Area for Demand of Transport Infrastructure and Services” projected that about USD $411 billion in transport equipment will be required because of the AfCFTA, including:
-
USD $4 billion for 135 vessels;
-
USD $25 billion for 243 aircrafts;
-
USD $36 billion for 169,000 rail wagons; and
-
USD $345 billion for over 2.2 million trucks.
The investments in railway infrastructure and fleets will result in the percentage of total intra-Africa trade by rail increasing by an estimated 5.5%, from less than 1% today to nearly 7%.
We are encouraged to see that our multilateral development banks are stepping up their efforts and playing a vital role in making Africa investment ready. Our work to support de-risking investments in the continent falls in this category.
To achieve transformational change, more is needed! That’s why we are here!
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Lack of appropriate information about the AfCFTA is amongst the top of the list of challenges, and therefore of the opportunities, to address the situation.
For example, the African private sector, especially small and medium-scale enterprises, remains largely unaware of the AfCFTA.
We must not expect intra-African trade to change without the African private sector knowing about it, embracing it, and playing a key role in supporting its operationalization.
In other words, the transformational power of the AfCFTA can only be unleashed through a comprehensive, coordinated, inclusive and intentional action by all at all levels.
That is why this ministerial conference chose the theme of “proposing transformative strategic actions” to advance AfCFTA implementation. This is also the theme of the Economic Report on Africa 2025 that will be launched during next week’s Ministerial segment and that seeks to achieve four things:
-
Assess the state of AfCFTA implementation to date.
-
Provide empirical evidence showing AfCFTA’s potential to drive Africa’s trade-led integration and become a critical pillar for its inclusive and sustainable development.
-
Identify key challenges to realizing and capitalizing on the transformative potential of the AfCFTA.
-
Propose actionable recommendations for bridging the gaps now preventing successful AfCFTA implementation.
As we ponder the mission of this ministerial conference of identifying and proposing transformative strategic actions for AfCFTA implementation, I invite all of us to be bold but also creative.
Thank you for your kind attention.