By EPN Reporter
MBABANE – The existence of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will help in expanding Eswatini’s markets.
Currently, Eswatini’s markets within the African continent are found only in the Southern and Eastern Africa, through the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade Manqoba Khumalo said the AfCFTA will help Eswatini sell its products even in African countries that are not in COMESA.
Khumalo said this today during the launch of the Preferential Trade under the AfCFTA Guided Trade Initiative (GTI) by the Republic of South Africa. The launch took place in Durban, South Africa. The launch was done by South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, who then invited other neighbouring countries to be part of the launch, hence Eswatini was part of the event.
“Currently, Eswatini’s principal exports in Africa are mostly concentrated in the Southern and Eastern regions. The AfCFTA, presents the country with greater prospects to expand into new markets beyond these two regions and provides alternative markets for the export of value-added goods and services,” Khumalo said.
Khumalo told the gathering that Eswatini was fully committed to start trading under the GTI and looked forward in partnering with the Secretariat to ensure that the country’s private sector, including the SMMEs sector was assisted. “The country has already engaged traders to take advantage of this great opportunity to penetrate the African market,” he said.
On behalf of Eswatini, Khumalo congratulated South Africa in taking the positive strides to commemorate the launch in the margins of the Council of Ministers, which not only signified the importance of the AfCFTA to them, but to the SACU countries collectively.
“The shipment that will be made today under the AfCFTA operational tools portrays a positive message to the African economic operators and the whole world that SACU is ready to trade under the AfCFTA,” he said.
The minister said gazetting of the provisional tariff offer by the SACU countries would now enable the private sector, particularly MSMESs to tap into the opportunities brought by the wider AfCFTA market, with a population of 1.3 billion people and a market share of about US$3.4 trillion.
He stated that Eswatini looked forward to commence trade under the Guided Trade Initiative, as they strongly believed that the AfCFTA was an important initiative in facilitating investment and increased the country’s prospects of stimulating industrialisation including value chains, employment, income generation and poverty reduction.
The benefits, according to the minister, would not only accrue to the bigger players, but would also enable small businesses owned by women and the youth to tap into the opportunities as envisaged in the AfCFTA Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade.
Khumalo also concluded by telling the meeting that it gave him great pleasure to announce that Eswatini had concluded the development of the National AfCFTA Implementation Strategy and Action Plan, which would be launched in the month of March 2024.
“The Strategy identifies priority export products and services, key value chains, value addition and trade opportunities, as well as constraints, measures and capabilities required for Eswatini to take full advantage of the available markets, including the AfCFTA,” Khumalo concluded.
