A panel of business leaders speaking at the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting, in Davos, Switzerland, this week, bemoaned the difficulty in obtaining work permits and visas for Africans across the continent and discussed the urgent need for Africa to focus on reducing nontariff barriers to trade.

The panel comprised business leaders including from various Pan-African companies, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and Oxfam.

“For business to thrive, the continent needs best practices and the best business people to move across country borders with ease. This is particularly true for new and entrepreneurial companies where skills transfer is an imperative.

“At least 75% of businesses on the continent are small and medium-sized enterprises and they employ many of Africa’s citizens. These businesses will benefit from the removal of nontariff barriers by, for example, being able to more easily access finance for their Pan-African expansions,” the panel found.

Of course, Africa always dances to the beat of its own drum and, in March 2018. the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement was signed by most African Union (AU) members, in Kigali, Rwanda.

A protocol on the free movement of persons was also adopted in January 2018.

The goal of the AfCFTA is to fulfill the “need and critical importance of creating an expanded and secure market for the goods and services of member States of the AU through adequate infrastructure and the reduction or progressive elimination of tariffs, and the elimination of nontariff barriers to trade and investment, the panel said.  

Africa is not new to trade agreements and the Economic Community of West African States was established in 1975 and covers 15 countries and almost 400-million people. Similarly, the East African Community (EAC) was established in 1967, and revitalised in 2000.

The EAC is planning a single currency by 2023, an ambitious plan considering that the European Union had its origins in the 1950s and only established its own currency at the turn of the century.

At the WEF Africa meeting in Kigali. in 2016, the then Finance Minister of Rwanda, Claver Gatete, explained how, in the EAC, they had managed to reduce the time it took a container to reach Kigali from the Kenyan port of Mombasa from 21 days to 5 days just by reducing nontariff barriers.

Meanwhile, the AfDB recently released its ‘African Economic Outlook 2019’ report, which bemoans the fact that intra-regional trade is only 12% of the trade on the continent. 

The outlook considers how, as the AfCFTA agreement gets implemented over time, trade could grow by more than 18%.

“However, the most important benefit will be the development of value chains spanning multiple countries, which will boost exports of value-added products to the rest of the world as the continent industrialises,” the report stated.

Although a long way off, the AfDB’s models show that this could boost the continent’s gross domestic product by between 4% and 5%. This would be in addition to the existing growth of more than 5% that is expected for non-oil exporting countries (and excluding South Africa) over the next five years. 

The need for African governments to follow through with domestic policies to enable the full implementation of the AfCFTA agreement is, therefore, key and panel members bemoaned the dearth of politicians in attendance at the WEF session. 

“If we are looking for the ‘next China after China’ it could be right under our noses.  A continent growing at these high rates will surely surpass the current Asian and Indian subcontinent’s high growth regions,” the panel stated.