Morocco pleaded, in Addis Ababa, before the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the African Union (COREP), which is continuing the work of its preparatory session for the next Summit of the Union, for the effective operationalization of the Free Zone – African continental exchange (ZLECAf). Rabat believes that this is a decisive step for the realization of the regional integration of the continent.
In his intervention during a meeting of the PRC Sub-Committee on Economic and Trade Issues, chaired by Morocco, the Ambassador, Permanent Representative of the Kingdom to the AU and the ECA-UN, Mohamed Arrouchi, underlined that the operationalization of the AfCFTA constitutes a crucial step towards the realization of the regional integration of the continent, emphasizing the need to build on the relevant strategies and projects of the AU in order to accelerate this process.
Operationalization of the AfCFTA could bring advantages economic and social benefits to the region, helping to raise incomes, reduce poverty and accelerate the continent’s economic growth.
According to the World Bank, it would notably allow to open a market of 1.3 billion consumers, with an estimated GDP of 2.6 trillion dollars and could lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty.
This should help create more opportunities and jobs for African citizens, develop regional value chains and strengthen infrastructure and the foundations of intracontinental trade, added the Moroccan diplomat, recalling that the AfCFTA is an accelerator for the establishment of the African internal market with a view to achieving the creation of the African Economic Community provided for by the Abuja Treaty in 2028.
According to Rachid Sari, economist, the operationalization of the AfCFTA will bring many gains to the African continent in sectors such as trade and industry as well as agriculture and related activities, which will ensure food security. Thanks to the continent’s experience in the field of phosphate fertilizers, Africa could considerably increase its exports and guarantee the food security of a group of African countries, he specified.
The analyst pointed out, in his statement to MoroccoLatestNews, that Morocco’s pioneering role within a group of African countries in the banking sector and the establishment of industrial platforms for agricultural fertilizers, particularly in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire, will allow it to create a good number of markets within the continent.
The activation of the agreement and the win-win principle that Morocco adopts will allow an increase in GDP by rates above 10%, and the creation of employment opportunities in the Kingdom and on the continent, in particular in vulnerable countries, explained Sari.
On the other hand, Mohammed Jadri, researcher in economics, recalled the context of crises through which Africa has recently passed, thus allowing it to ” learn“, particularly in terms of its development and progress which “ can only be done by Africans themselves“.
The researcher told MoroccoLatestNews that the economies of African countries are considered to be largely integrated, given that they have petroleum materials, various raw materials and young human capital.
Jadri also notes that ” Morocco’s call through the African Union to operationalize a free trade area such as its European counterpart would strengthen the economies of African countries, as it would reduce the cost of production at the level of several industrial sectors“.
And to conclude, that inter-African products will benefit from a market with more than one and a half billion consumers, ” in addition to the lifting of customs barriers which will increase the competitiveness of African products exported to the West“, and the attractiveness of African and foreign investment, thus creating hundreds of thousands of job opportunities for African youth.