China Offers Assistance to Africa on AfCFTA Implementation

By Adedapo Adesanya

China has extended a hand of assistance to African countries as it set to launch its continental free trade and investment platform known as the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

The Asian giant said it has a huge experience from its international trading transactions with other continents, according to the deputy director-general of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (ICC-NDRC), Mr Hao Chang.

Mr Chang, while speaking at the International Cooperation Centre, noted that China will enhance trade in Africa through its implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which aims to connect 70 countries through infrastructure.

“We are prepared to assist African countries through the promotion of trade facilities, building Africa’s industrial capacity to develop its value chain and building complete proposals for China and African countries to implement the various partnerships which exist between them,” he said.

Addressing a virtual meeting of top economic policy think tanks during the seventh Africa Think Tanks Summit, Mr Chang said building the trade relationship between China and Africa is currently focused on how China can facilitate the implementation of AfCFTA.

He explained that China has signed agreements with 39 countries in Africa to establish cooperation in building industrial capacity to promote the local manufacturing of goods in Africa.

According to him, the cooperation with African countries is focused on how to make the BRI beneficial to the African continental trader under the AfCFTA and how the Chinese experience in trade could be shared with African countries to facilitate trade at all levels.

China is working with African countries at three levels to implement broader goals aiming to fight poverty.

They include working with African countries under the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) frameworks and cooperation under the AU Agenda 2063.

Agenda 2063 prioritises the launching of the AfCFTA to accelerate trade among African countries to improve Africa’s economic well-being, Mr Chang said.

He said his think-tank will help to support African countries to implement their national strategic goals, including increasing industrial production, agriculture and infrastructure development.

He said ICC-NDRC is among the major backers of the Harare-based African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), the African Union Specialised technical agency tasked with managing the capacity constraints.

The Think Tank Summit is an annual event that aims to propose strategies and actionable recommendations for think tanks to enable them to contribute meaningfully to tackling policy implementation challenges facing Africa within the context of Africa’s Agenda 2063 and the SDGs.

The ACBF is currently working with other nations to accelerate efforts to ensure that countries are ready to trade continent-wide.

“We can further explore cooperation and the connectivity between trade and investment which is very important. China is one of the biggest trading partners to Africa and Africa is China’s biggest trading partner. This AfCFTA will form a big trading partnership between China and Africa,” Mr Chang added.

Also adding an input, Mr Kevin Urama, Senior Director at the African Development Institute at the African Development Bank (AfDB), explained that upon entry into force and with the deposit of 22 instruments of ratification and membership, AfCFTA will become the largest Free Trade Area (FTA) in the global economy, covering a market of 1.2 billion Africans with a combined wealth of $2.5 trillion expected to reach $29 trillion by 2050.

According to Mr Urama, the AfCFTA could deepen and expand intra-Africa trade from its very low base of 15 to 52 per cent. At the national level, the estimated welfare gains of around 2.64 per cent of continental GDP will be shared among all participating countries.

On an individual level, the AfCTA will increase real wages for both skilled and unskilled workers in diverse sectors as employment shifts from agricultural to non-agricultural sectors like manufacturing and services.

It is estimated that implementing the AfCFTA could boost Africa’s income by $450 billion, bring 30 million people out of extreme poverty and raise the incomes of 68 million others.