The Export Brief The Export Brief 2 | Page 56

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement is one of the hottest topics in the business arena in Nigeria and indeed on the African continent. The refusal of Nigeria to sign the Kigali declaration and ultimately become a signatory to the AfCFTA has been widely documented and analyzed. The organized private sector in Nigeria has been literally divided on this issue, with the manufacturers Association of Nigeria insisting on ―no-AfCFTA‖, while the National Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) has given the government the go-ahead to sign the agreement. Nigeria will sign the AfCFTA, regardless of when that happens (today or sometime in the future). That is, if there is still an AfCFTA to be signed when we are ready to do so. The truth is that this AfCFTA represents potentially, the single biggest trade window for Nigeria to truly benefit from. According to available statistics, Nigeria has signed over 500 trade agreements since independence and the unanimous verdict from trade experts is that the nation has not really benefited much from them. For instance, in the ECOWAS sub-region, Nigeria comes in 8th out of 15 countries in terms of regional trade. That is woeful whichever you look at it. With the rest of Africa, the outlook is not much better. In terms of extra-Africa trade (excluding crude oil and petroleum) with other regions over the past five or six decades, we are yet to witness the promised diversification or development to the country‘s economy. This may not be unconnected to the concessional nature of most of these extra-African trade agreements like AGOA, which may be suspended or not renewed, on a whim like the case of Rwanda and Madagascar. Besides, most of these agreements place demands on our businesses and government that make it difficult for us to truly play at the level expected of us. Businesses in turn, are afraid to make long term plans around such arrangements when it is uncertain whether preferential market access will still exist in the future. So an AfCFTA that has the potential to level the playing field and force all African nations to play by the same set of rules cannot be the worst platform for Nigeria to join.