The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo, has said that intra-African goods exports are low compared to Africa’s exports to other continents of the world.
The minister said this at the African Industrialisation Day held recently with theme ‘Positioning African Industry to Supply the AfCFTA Market’.
He said though the share of intra-African exports as a percentage of total African exports increased from about 10 percent in 1995 to around 17 percent in 2017 (Brookings Institute), it remained low compared to levels with Europe (69 per cent), Asia (59 per cent), and North America (31 per cent). Adebayo said the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) projects that through the removal of tariffs on goods, the value of intra-African trade will rise by between 15 and 25 per cent by 2040, compared to a situation with no African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) pact in place.
“We expect that increased intra-Africa trade will improve export sophistication across the continent by enabling more countries integrate regional and global value chains and consequently increase the quality of exports,” he said.
