Strengthen Private Sector To Expand Intra-African Trade – Moghalu

Chairman, Board of Directors and Advisory Board Africa Private Sector Summit, Professor Kingsley Moghalu, has said Africa’s private sector must be strengthened to leverage the provisions and protocols of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to expand intra-African trade to create prosperity.

Moghalu stated this at the AfCFTA Joint Private Sector Session 2023 Afreximbank Intra-African Trade Fair held yesterday in Egypt.

He said “trading across borders under the terms of the AfCFTA began on January 1, 2021. As of August 2023, 47 out of 54 African countries have ratified the treaty. When fully implemented, the AfCFTA will boost intra-African trade by 52 per cent, lift 30 million people out of poverty, and increase the continent’s GDP by $450 billion by 2035.

“The envisaged quantum leap from the impact of AfCFTA is not misplaced: Africa trades far less within itself than other continents.”

Speaking on the role of private sector and government, Moghalu said “while governments have signed and ratified the AfCFTA, it is companies and business enterprises that trade across Africa, far more than governments.

“This means that the African private sector must be strengthened to leverage the provisions and protocols of the AfCFTA to expand intra-African trade to create prosperity.”

He explained that two critical conditions must be met, saying “while the private sector will directly unlock prosperity for Africa, without effective governments, governance and public policy, they cannot. Every prosperous country has a competent, effective state as a backdrop.

“The second is to lay the foundation within national economies in Africa for the progressive implementation of the AfCFTA. This means that enabling business environments for trade and investment must be created to actualize the protocols of the RECs and the AfCFTA.”

He further said “specifically, to help achieve an enabling environment for business in the continent, APSS is engaging with African governments and other relevant parties for the adoption by all African countries of a Charter on the Private Sector Bill of Rights (PSBoR) for an Enabling Business Environment.

“The Private Sector Bill of Rights contains 24 specific rights. These rights include the rights to easy establishment of businesses, a conducive legal framework for business, infrastructure, peace and security, and consultative relationships between governments and businesses in the making of regulations that govern or affect business.”

He noted that the adoption of the Private Sector Bill of Rights will fast-track the actualisation of the key Framework Protocols of the AfCFTA.

 He added that “our goal is to have the Charter on the Private Sector Bill of Rights adopted by at least 22 African countries, but preferably all countries on the continent that are members of the 55-Member State African Union, as well as by the Pan-African Parliament, and then adopted at the Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the African Union.

“We will seek adoption by national parliaments and/or the Executive branches of government. We are walking a similar path as that which led to the successful adoption of the AfCFTA. The specific rights identified in the Private Sector Bill of Rights come from the protocols of the RECs and AfCFTA.”

He believed that the Private Sector Bill of Rights, when adopted by African countries and alongside the RECs and AfCFTA, addresses a fundamental conundrum that has confronted post-colonial Africa for decades.