Africa's Free Trade Pact
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 30 April 2018
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The leaders of more than 40 African countries have signed a deal to create one of the world's largest free trade blocs, promising to bring prosperity to more than 1.2 billion people.
But some of the continent's biggest economies, including Nigeria and South Africa, have so far refused to join. And with more than 80% of African trade currently done outside the continent, what impact will the new deal actually have in Africa?
Some people on the streets of Kampala, Uganda, tell us they fear increased competition from neighbouring Kenya, and we ask Tonye Cole, billionaire co-founder of power and infrastructure giant Sahara Group, why his native Nigeria has decided not to take part.
Plus, we hear words of optimism from Ghana's trade minister, Alan Kyerematen, and Arancha González, executive director of the International Trade Centre.
(Picture: Workers at a clothing factory in South Africa. Credit: Rodger Bosch, Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:09.1 | Coming up, the dream of Pan-African free trade. |
| 0:13.1 | A Nigerian billionaire reckons all of Africa can profit. |
| 0:16.8 | When you have this free trade agreement, then you can travel between countries easily. |
| 0:20.7 | You can move goods and services across countries. |
| 0:23.4 | You can go into countries quick and you can do business much better. |
| 0:27.6 | Yes, the African continental free trade area. It's now a concrete pledge and even regular citizens like these in Uganda are discussing the pros and cons. |
| 0:37.5 | People will come to Uganda because when you compare Uganda and Rwanda, |
| 0:41.0 | we are more vigilant than the Rwandis. |
| 0:43.2 | So I think we shall take their jobs. |
| 0:45.5 | We are more competitive. |
| 0:47.0 | That's coming up in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:52.2 | How do you develop the world's least developed continent? |
| 0:56.8 | How do you get Africa trading? |
| 0:59.1 | Ever since the continent's 50-plus nations emerged from colonial rule in the 1950s and 60s, |
| 1:04.6 | their economies have depended overwhelmingly on the export of raw materials, |
| 1:09.1 | things like oil, minerals and agricultural goods, |
| 1:12.5 | selling those overwhelmingly to the rich nations of the world. And even today, less than 20% |
| 1:18.3 | of African trade is between the African countries themselves. But could this be about to change? |
| 1:23.7 | At a summit last month, 44 of Africa's 55 nations committed to launching an ambitious regional trade bloc, the African continental free trade area. |
| 1:34.5 | Some, as the numbers will show you, did resist much remains to be implemented on the deal, but it could, supporters reckon, represent a seismic shift in the way that Africa sees itself and operates economically. |
| 1:47.0 | We'll have more on that in just a moment. |
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