African Leaders Create Continental Free Trade Area (March 21, 2018) [1]
On March 21, 2018, the Assembly of the African Union passed a decision [3] at its Tenth Extraordinary Session, held from March 17–21, 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda, to create the African Continental Free Trade Area [4] (AfCFTA). Leaders from forty-four [5] African states signed the agreement, although fifty-five African states had been involved in negotiations on the AfCFTA since 2015. The agreement’s aim is to “[c]reate a single continental market for goods and services, with free movement of business persons and investments, and thus pave the way for accelerating the establishment of the Continental Customs Union and the African customs union.” A “Questions and Answers” sheet [6] notes that under the agreement, “African businesses, traders and consumers will no longer pay tariffs on a large variety of goods that they trade between African countries” and “[t]raders constrained by non-tariff barriers, including overly burdensome customs procedures or excessive paperwork, will have a mechanism through which to seek the removal of such burdens,” among other commitments. In terms of size, the AfCFTA “will cover a market of 1.2 billion people and a gross domestic product (GDP) of $2.5 trillion, across all 55 member States of the African Union,” forming the largest free trade area since the creation of the World Trade Organization. The AfCFTA will come into force when it has been ratified by twenty-two signatories.