President Uhuru Kenyatta is tomorrow expected to join other African Heads of State and Government who will converge in Kigali, Rwanda, to sign a landmark agreement to create a Continental Free Trade Area.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) aims to establish a single market that will spur industrialization, infrastructural development, economic diversification and trade.The new agreement is also expected to increase intra-Africa trade beyond the current 13 percent and improve the prospects of the African Continent to attract huge investments.The creation of the AfCFTA provides new export opportunities for African products whose combined GDP stands at US dollars 3 trillion, covering over 1.2 billion people.The agreement also covers issues on non-tariff barriers, technical barriers to trade, customs procedures and a framework on transit issues between countries.Presidents Kenyatta, Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda have been very instrumental towards the creation of the continental trading bloc.The AfCFTA agreement will be signed during an Extra-Ordinary Summit of the African Union to be held at the Kigali Convention Centre tomorrow.The new agreement creates a borderless Africa in terms of trade in goods, services, jobs, investment, free movement of people, intellectual property rights and competitiveness.