Africa To Launch A Cairo-To-Cape Town Free Trade Area That Is Bigger Than The European Union

“Africa’s three major regional economic committees (RECs) are set to finalise an agreement on forming the continent’s largest free trade area (FTA) during a tripartite summit taking place 7-10 June in Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh,” Ahram Online reports.

“The tripartite grouping, which accounts for 51 percent of Africa’s $2.3 trillion GDP, will sign a deal Wednesday to create free trade zones for goods immediately, with the hope of introducing services and intra-continent investor opportunities at a later stage,” the news agency reports.

The deal would bring together 26 countries that are members of the three RECs, COMESA-EAC-SADC, providing Egypt with free trade access to seven new African nations.

It is worth noting that the tripartite grouping includes African nations such as South Africa, Rwanda, Zambia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Egypt and Zimbabwe.

Intra-trade within the tripartite area increased threefold to $102.6 billion in the 10 years leading to 2014, according to Ahram Online.

Egypt projects to rise its exports to African countries by 100 percent to $5 billion within the next three years.

Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Nour said that Egypt has agreed with the African Development Bank to provide credit facilities worth $500 million to Egyptian exporters in order to support trade with Africa.

“Africa FDI inflow hit $128 billion in 2014, world’s 2nd largest destination. Consumer facing sectors again attracted the largest share of inflows,” Regional Director for the Middle East & Africa at the Economist Intelligence Unit reports.

At the begging of the year, the African Union and China agreed to on an ambitious transport infrastructure blueprint, aiming to link the capitals of all 54 states of the African continent via motorways, rail and air links. Promoting the development of a mature system of transport infrastructure in Africa would be extremely beneficial to China and it would offer the country access to natural resources and markets on the continent.