President John Dramani Mahama has announced plans to advocate for the Caribbean’s inclusion in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) when he assumes office as the African Union Chairman.
Speaking during a joint press conference with Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Monday, August 3, as part of his four-day state visit to Jamaica, President Mahama said expanding the free trade area would unlock new opportunities for businesses and deepen commercial cooperation between the two regions.
He acknowledged that increasing trade volumes would require deliberate investment and long-term planning rather than immediate results.
“With regards to trade, we don’t kid ourselves that you snap your finger and suddenly our trade volumes will go up. We need to work at it. And that’s why I said one way of working at it is one, to put in the infrastructure and the logistics. But the second is to expand the trade area.
“And that’s why I said as chair of the AU, I’m going to push for the inclusion of the Caribbean into the African Continental Free Trade Area,” the President assured.
President Mahama explained that the AfCFTA operates by harmonising standards across participating countries, allowing certified products to move more freely within the trading bloc.
“The way the African Continental Free Trade Area works is that we harmonize our standards. And once you get approval from your standards authority that your product is of the standard that you can export, then they put you on a register.
“And if you go on, you can see which commodities qualify. They can be electrical cables. They can be transformers. They can be iron and steel products. They can be processed food products. I mean, there’s so many pharmaceutical products. And so once you go in there and you decide to trade, you go on the platform. It will get you in touch with the producer in whichever country.”
He further disclosed that the African Union is developing a payment platform that will allow member countries to settle cross-border transactions using their respective local currencies.
According to him, the initiative will eliminate the need to convert local currencies into third-party currencies before completing transactions, making trade faster and more cost-effective.
“And once that is done, it will make it easier because we don’t need to exchange our currencies into somebody else’s currency before we buy tea from Kenya or Morocco buys mangoes from Ghana. We’ll just use our own currencies to pay for and the settlement will be done digitally. And so that will all enhance trade volumes,” he said.
President Mahama noted that trade among African countries has already begun to improve since the implementation of the AfCFTA and expressed optimism that the renewed cooperation between Ghana and Jamaica would further strengthen economic relations.
He said the reactivation of the Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation provides a structured framework for both countries to monitor progress and deepen collaboration, adding that Ghana and Jamaica have agreed to hold bilateral meetings every two years, alternating between Kingston and Accra.
“Already, we’re beginning to see an uptick since the African Continental Free Trade Area came. We’re beginning to see an uptick in trading between African countries. I believe that now that we have activated the Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation to give us a framework and give us a measurable tool for looking at the progress we are making, we’ve agreed we’ll meet every two years, vice versa in Kingston and then in Accra. So, if we meet, we can tell what progress we’ve made and if we need to make any adjustments, we can do so,” he added.
The African Continental Free Trade Area, which officially commenced trading in 2021, is the world’s largest free trade area by the number of participating countries. It brings together 55 African nations into a single market aimed at boosting intra-African trade, industrialisation and economic integration. The AfCFTA Secretariat is headquartered in Accra, Ghana.
