adminThomas Kwesi Quartey, Ghana’s deputy minister of foreign affairs and regional integration, said trade among African states had been little while that with outside countries had seen an increasing trend in the past years.
This, he noted, was as a result of colonial experience which encouraged trading between metropolitan authorities but hardly among African states. After 50 years of regional integration, Quartey said, Africans now have the full authority to improve trade among themselves.
“That is the task. If we should do that, we shall have better terms of trade with the outside world.
“We shall command more resources to be able to improve the lives of our people,” he told Xinhua in an interview.
Intra-Africa trade has emerged as a top priority in recognition of the fact that the African market of some one billion consumers can be a powerful engine for growth and employment.
Despite the introduction of free trade areas, customs unions and common markets within the region, the level of intra-Africa trade remains among the lowest in the world.
It is reckoned that only about 10 percent of African trade is within the continent, compared to about 40 percent in North America and about sixty percent in West Europe.
Quartey said one of the positive signs of regional integration was that citizens of the continent were beginning to feel more and more African these days. — Xinhua.
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