The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will be launched on the 7 July in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea amid high expectations of enhanced trade among regional economies.
However, for Zimbabwe, an array challenges remain unresolved.
The AfCFTA envisions a seamless trading area across the vast of the continent, merging 55 countries with a total of 1.2 billion people and an estimated Gross Domestic Product of US$ 2.5 trillion.
This is going to be the world’s largest free trade area, with trade projected to increase by 52 percent from current levels by next year, consumer and business spending expected to reach US$ 6.7 trillion by 2030.
Zimbabwe is stepping up efforts to map a national strategy that will facilitate the success of the AfCFTA but on the other end, it has requested an extension of 15 years to fully implement the AfCFTA pending industrialization.
Already its sets a dark start to the regional integration agenda particularly when other peer countries have well positioned themselves to tap into this market.
On Wednesday, industry stakeholders met for a two-day forum to draft a comprehensive national strategy. Foreign Affairs and International Trade Secretary James Manzou expressed confidence in the state of preparedness notwithstanding serious challenges at hand.
“Zimbabwe’s opportunities in this outweighs the disadvantages that we may experience. We are ready to participate as a full-fledged member,” he said.
“This AfCFTA offers a lot of opportunities, in terms of the market, we know there are opportunities, we are also aware there would be challenges, we have been put in a reservation in terms of the time period of implementation of modalities of the agreement, normally it could have been five years as per the agreement, but we are negotiating as a group of seven countries in terms of us being allowed more time so that there is policy space,”
“It is important that every nation develops a national strategy and I did indicate that we would want to see the areas were Zimbabwe has a competitive advantage and then we develop these areas as we enter the African Free Trade Agreement market,” added Manzou.
But weak productivity levels in agriculture, low capacity utilization and antiquated machinery in its industries and acute power cuts present the biggest conundrum among a host of other issues which include non-productive factors such as policy discordance and a broken down transport infrastructure.
Already Zimbabwe is grappling with an unsustainable trade deficit with its biggest trading partner South Africa averaging over a billion dollars annually due to weak exports.
“We are still facing challenges to compete on a regional market because we are an economy still trying to rebuild and this means our industries need time to grow before we can actually look forward to full participation and reaping benefits from the agreement,” Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries out-going president Sifelani Jabangwe said.
In 2016, Zimbabwe enacted a statutory Instrument 64, meant to curb importation of selected items into the country in order to cushion local manufacturers against competitive imports coming mainly from South Africa, a decision that goes against the ideals of free trade.
But African Union Commission representative, Howard Mawana believes there may never be a right time for nations in Africa to commit unless they weigh potential fruits from the AfCFTA.
“If we look at our challenges as a continent, no country will be ready, whether it’s South Africa or its Nigeria, or any other country; I think we should not look at our challenges but focus on our opportunities,” he said.
