There are strong indications that Nigeria will join the elite list of nations that have already started trading activities under African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) by August 2023.
This development is coming 9 months after the secretary, National Action Committee (NAC) on African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), Mr. Francis Anatogu, announced that all is set for Nigeria to begin trading activities under the AfCFTA.
Already, countries such as: Rwanda, Cameroun, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius and Tanzania have all began trading under AfCFTA since July last year.
According to Shipping Position Daily, Nigeria will join the seven African countries to also begin trading under the regional trading platform as well t gathered that a list of items to be exported has already been decided on, this is even as exporters are being mobilized and are already on board the Guided Trade Initiative of AfCFTA.
In an exclusive chat with Shipping Position Daily, the Market Intelligence Coordinator at the Nigerian secretariat of AFCFTA; Mr Peter Nwagbogu confirmed that within the next eight weeks, Nigeria would have commenced trading, even as he added that all the necessary documentation and policy reviews that must be undertaken before trading commences are currently being addressed.
He disclosed that Nigeria will be joining Tunisia, Cote D’Ivoire and a few other African countries to begin phase two of the AfCFTA.
According to him, the first seven countries that have already started trading were partakers of phase one, adding that there is a need for Nigeria to scale up its product capacity for export.
“From where we stand, a lot is being done on the continental level and in the national level here in Nigeria. We have countries who are already doing things to enable them trade, some are doing them in a faster pace, some are doing them in a slow pace, but everybody is aimed towards the same direction.
“Now, what we have here in Nigeria is that we have gone from first doing an impact directness assessment several years back, about three years ago. So now we are developing a strategy for Nigerians to leverage the AFCFTA agreement and we have gotten to a point where we are engaging stakeholders and when I say stakeholders, I mean both the public sector stakeholders and the private sector stakeholders, on how to leverage the AFCFTA and aligning them with the strategy”.
“The idea with doing this is so we have a coordinated framework and as a coordination office (because that is really our mandate to coordinate the implementation of the AFCFTA such that Nigeria gets maximum value), we have gone from the stage of developing that strategy to now getting stakeholders to buy in and begin to play their roles”, he said.
Explaining further, he stated that, the Nigerian action committee of AfCFTA is in constant engagement with the private sector and relevant government agencies.
“In the public sector space, we have a situation where the relevant MDAs that are relevant to trade, talk about Customs, talk about Ministry of Finance, talk about Ministry of Trade and Investment, you talk about Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), So, the various agencies that someway and in some form are connected to trade are already being engaged, in fact they are part of the National Action Committee at the higher level, steering committee level, and then they are also part of the working teams that we have that are doing various things across stakeholder engagement, across aggregation of SMEs, and even ensuring the domestication of the AfCFTA in Nigeria”.
He added that there is also a lot of conversations and work being done in aviation and ensuring airways connection between Nigeria and others. He said that there are countries that don’t have direct flight and as such discussions are ongoing to tackle such.
He further said, “beyond that, there is a trade enablement aspect where we have had to submit our tariffs to AfCFTA secretariat in Ghana, and a lot of work went into agreeing. With that being done, we are now at the point where we are about to enable businesses to finally trade, and we are doing those through what we call the AFCFTA Guided Training Initiative (GTI). It was launched in October last year”.
He confirmed that, “with seven countries on board, Nigeria is supposed to be the 8th country. God-willing, as we have already submitted necessary things including our Designated Competent Authority (DCA) necessary stamps, and the instrument basically required for that”.
“Where we are now as at today is that we are mobilising exporters to be onboard to the GTI programme. The way the GTI programme works is that the seven countries for instance that are on board, they have agreed certain products that they will export, and while agreeing certain products that they will export, they have also agreed certain products that they will import”, he explained.
“Where we are now is that we have identified a few products that we are going to export, and also Nigeria already has a list of products that they allow for import, so we are going to say, this list of products that we already import, these are the ones that we agree to import under AfCFTA”, he confirmed
Disclosing steps further taken to actualize Nigeria’s commencement of trading under AfCFTA, he added: “Last month, we had a programme, precisely on the 18th of May, we had a programme, the launch of the GTI onboarding initiative where we had over 100 exporting businesses. People who produce and export, we talk about the likes of Procter and Gamble, BUA, Unilever, among others, we had them in a room at the NEPC headquarters here in Abuja, and we sensitised them, had a workshop, guided them through the process of GTI”.
“We are also taking that same initiative to Lagos, God-willing in a few days we will be announcing the Lagos edition, we will take it around Nigeria, we will look at Kano, we will look at Port-Harcourt, Aba, and somewhere in the North-East where trade happens”, he added.
Giving further insights, he said: “We are basically just looking at where trade happens, we are not just going to any community. The idea with going to Aba is because Aba is already the market capital of Nigeria, they are involved in a lot of commercial activities, from production to export and import, so that is a hub, the same way Kano is a hub, and Lagos is a hub. So, we are looking at just the hubs, we are not looking at going around the 36 states. We have targeted focus, it is not a political agenda or anything, so that’s basically it in a nutshell”.
According to him, “once we are able to get the first set of companies to export under the GTI, this will take a life of its own, because you will now begin to see companies who will say oh! this thing is real, this thing is really happening, why am I not on that list, and from that point onwards, I am sure that Nigeria will begin to smile. This simply means that as soon as you go round some of these hubs, in few months, Nigeria should join the other seven countries.
“The phase 1 has happened, if you Google it, you will find out that Kenya exported tea to Ghana under the AfCFTA, that has happened and they are expected to now continue because it’s been long since we tested. So the GTI is more or less like a test of the AfCFTA and so it is strictly on product at the moment, so with time we are going to scale it to services, but once we get products going then it’s easy to scale to services, so that is what it is”.
“I am sure that within (give or take0 eight weeks, we should be able to commence trade. I say eight weeks, barring any unforeseen circumstances because right now, as a matter of fact, the previous administration wanted to flag it off before leaving, but there were certain factors that were beyond our control that we could not make it come through. Fine, we are where we are today, we continue with the mobilization, and continue to address all those bottlenecks, they are not really bottlenecks, they are just necessary documentations and policy reviews that has to happen before we can really kick-start” he stated.
When asked if there is a unified means of exchange for countries trading under AfCFTA presently he said; “No we don’t, trading will still happen the way it used to happen, the only thing is that it will now happen under the terms of the AfCFTA. If you have that tariff concessions, for instance those tariff concessions that you benefit when you trade under AfCFTA, you will benefit them”.
