Incentivise Firms To Invest Across Multiple Countries, Says Afdb Lead

Despite sustained efforts to boost regional trade, African countries still trade more with the rest of the world than among themselves. Rectifying this imbalance calls for strategic investments in cross-border value chains in priority sectors across the continent, argues Joy Kategekwa, the director of the regional integration coordination office at the African Development Bank.

Regional value chains are really a way to democratise who can participate in intra-African trade. We are no longer talking about a production dispensation where you have to make the whole product within a single jurisdiction. Were talking more trade in parts, she tells African Business in an interview on the sidelines of the African Economic Conference in Gaborone, Botswana.

Firms investing across multiple jurisdictions should know that there are financial incentives for doing so, Kategekwa argues.

With the AfCFTA, were saying if you add value on this continent, using products made on the continent, we shall consider them made in Africa for the purpose of preferential tariff treatment. The signal that sends to the market and to the producers is make it, and well buy it.

In its simplest form that is what the promise of the AfCFTA is and when you try to unpack that you are talking about jobs, raising incomes, structural economic transformation and opening a new page for Africa.