President Edgar Lungu has signed the African Continental Free Trade Area(AfCFTA).
President Lungu signed the protocol which was witnessed His Excellency Albert M. Muchanga, African Union Commissioner for Trade and Industry, signed on behalf of the African Union.
The President said Zambia will now work towards necessary processes required to ratify the agreement.
The President said Zambia will now work towards necessary processes required to ratify the agreement.
He said Zambia recognized the importance of the agreement as it was one that would liberalise trade of both goods and services for all African countries .
Zambia witnessed the declaration of the AfCTA in Kigali Rwanda in 2018.
President Lungu said as a committed member of the African Union Zambia will endeavour to implement programs and projects of the AU.
The AfCTA will now be sent for ratification through Zambia’ institutional mechanism.
Zambia is already in wide free trade areas through the 19 member SADC states and through the 21 Comesa member states.
The AfCFTA aims to create a single continental market for goods and services, with free movement of business persons and investments, and thus pave the way for accelerating the establishment of the Continental Customs Union and the African customs union.
It also intends to expand intra African trade through better harmonization and coordination of trade liberalization and facilitation regimes and instruments across RECs and across Africa in general.
The AfCFTA will help resolve the challenges of multiple and overlapping memberships and expedite the regional and continental integration processes.
It will also help to enhance competitiveness at the industry and enterprise level through exploiting opportunities for scale production, continental market access and better reallocation of resources.
Good move… but the administration neither understands nor in a position of taking advantage of the market.
If you doubt me, look at Zimbabwe, Angola, DRC etc… why aren’t we taking advantage of this market and think we shall take advantage of the greater martlet of the entire Africa?
At times it’s not ECL, he can’t do this alone, but some ministers are so desperately dull!!!!
@Dr Chonya absolutely agree with you that we should take advantage of our neighbours who offer a huge market. I for one would want a more stable DRC as it can easily pull Zambia up economically
We have no capacity to take advantage of any market infact all we do is consume so more imports!
It is economies like South Africa that stand to gain in this case.
Let’s roll …
YAH their are more beautiful economically stable women in DRC for us to marry for business prosperity than zambian women who 100% depend on a man, everytime iam in zambia my GF from Livingstone asks me to send her transport money to meet me in Lusaka, furthermore i need to feed her , pay her something and give her transport money back Hmm..not with DRC OR Zim girls so this AftCTFA must be used in that direction
ECL has signed countless treaties that we are still awaiting for results. Sometimes it’s not the quantity but quality of these treaties. It’s folly to think this man will make good deals as a failed businessman he probably just signing our lives away with these shady deals
This is great news. I hope that such treaties lead to more inter-Africa trade. We need to correct the current anomaly were we trade more with our colonial masters than our African brethren, thereby exporting our scarce resources outside the continent.