With respect to news, the usually quiet December-January period has surely broken more records than I can remember. COVID-19 variants at new levels of virulence are causing hospitals to fill across the world, with the number of people dying at shockingly high levels. Several vaccines are now approved, however, offering salvation – eventually. Meanwhile isolation and lockdown measures have been adopted, pushing even the world’s strongest economies further down onto their knees.
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In the midst of this, the US was focused on a most dramatic election: predicted as a landslide but nail-bitingly tight; then comfortably won but falsely contested as fraudulent. This led to the storming of the US Capitol building by an angry mob of “insurrectionists”, which resulted in a second attempt to impeach Donald Trump.
In the UK, Brexit was the alternative news item. On January 1, 2021, a Brexit trade deal, agreed only days earlier, came into force following some four years of acrimonious wrangling. Celebrated by the Brexiters and met with a sigh of relief by almost everyone else, this is the first free-trade deal in history that makes it harder for two trading partners to do business with each other.
Under the radar, though, on the same day the Brexit Trade agreement came into force, the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was finalised. In a release from the African Association of Automotive Manufacturers (AAAM), I read: “This is an important milestone for the realisation of the AAAM’s vision of building a successful automotive ecosystem, which will lead to a sustainable industry that creates significant jobs and assists in the industrialisation of the auto sector for Africa.” Ultimately, with more than 1.3-billion people and up to $3-trillion dollars in GDP, AfCFTA has the potential to become the world’s largest free trade bloc.
Our own Cyril Ramaphosa, who is currently the chairperson of the African Union (AU), said at its adoption on Saturday 5 December 2020: “Today we stand on the cusp of a new era in the progress of our continent. The moment we have all been working painstakingly towards has finally arrived.”
“The commencement of trading under the AfCFTA on the 1st of January 2021 is one of the most significant milestones in the continental integration project,” he said, adding that Africa is determined to take charge of its own destiny, and that its success and development is fundamentally tied to harnessing the potential and energies of its citizens. The AAAM hopes that the initiative will create demand and production capacity for some 5.0-million new vehicles per year, up from the 2019 level of 1.1-million. “This growth requires the implementation of progressive automotive policies and eco systems across the continent, where hub countries in regions will assemble vehicles supported by surrounding economies sharing in the value chain,” said David Coffey, CEO of AAAM, who expects the Rules of Origin for the automotive industry to be concluded by mid-2021.
A World Bank report from July 2020 – The African Continental Free Trade Area: Economic and Distributional Effects – says that AfCFTA will provide a unique opportunity for countries in the region to competitively integrate into the global economy, reduce poverty, and promote inclusion.
By 2035, the World Bank estimates that the agreement will contribute to lifting an additional 30-million people from extreme poverty and 68-million people from moderate poverty. Real income gains from full implementation of the agreement could increase by 7%, or nearly US$450-billion, and while African economies struggle to manage the consequences of COVID-19, AfCFTA will provide an anchor for long-term reform and integration.
The report predicts that AfCFTA would boost African intraregional trade in manufacturing by 29% by 2035, with intracontinental exports increasing by more than 81% and exports to non-African countries rising 19%. While the gains come, in part, from decreased tariffs, the greater gains come from reducing nontariff barriers, improving hard and soft infrastructure at the borders, reducing red tape and lowering compliance costs for traders, all of which will make it easier for African businesses to integrate into global supply chains.
Freer intra-African trade and a growing manufacturing sector will help women by lowering the gender wage gap, and all workers by creating new and better employment opportunities. The report estimates that compared with a business-as-usual scenario, implementing AfCFTA will lead to a 10% increase in wages, with larger gains for unskilled workers and women.
In this issue, we report on the establishment of the Africa Hydrogen Partnership (AHP), which aims to develop and finance a green hydrogen economy across the African continent, most notably to replace diesel in commercial vehicles and generators and to provide hydrogen for fertiliser production. When viewed in the light of AfCFTA initiative, this now seems quite feasible and exciting.
The post COVID future for Africa could indeed look very different.