Promising intra-African trade deal signed, but Nigeria won't play
Time：2015-06-19
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The Tripartite Free Trade Agreement (TFTA) was signed in Cairo last week, merging the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).
But the TFTA deal does not include Nigeria, Africa`s biggest economy, though South Africa, Egypt, Angola and Kenya mean the new body accounts for 60 per cent of continental output.
TFTA is also expected to boost low levels of intra-African trade, key to the continent`s economic well-being, she said, reported Reuters.
Today, intra-African trade is 10 per cent of the 54-nation continent`s total, and has been in proportional decline for more than 10 years - against southeast Asia`s 25 per cent proportion for example.
Enforcing tariff cuts could take five years or more but Ms Acyl said the success of Africa`s deepest free-trade zone - the EAC of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi - suggested the local share of total trade could double in a decade.
"Just removing the trade barriers should increase it to 22 per cent," said Ms Acyl, a Chadian. "East Africa has been able to do it."
Negotiations to broaden the new bloc to incorporate west Africa, where the major economies besides Nigeria are Ghana and Ivory Coast, open on June 15 and are expected to wrap up within two years, Ms Acyl.