AU summit 32: Beyond the hype of Africa’s free trade deal

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) faces a gap between political enthusiasm and technical implementation. While the African Union aims for a formal launch in July 2019, critical components such as tariff schedules, rules of origin, and protocols for trade in goods and services remain unfinished. UNCTAD suggests full liberalisation could increase intra-African exports by 33%, but failure to deliver concrete benefits for investors and traders could undermine the project's legitimacy.

• The AfCFTA was launched and is being relaunched before essential technical details, including tariff schedules, rules of origin, and regulations for specific services sectors, were agreed upon.
• The framework agreement mandates the liberalisation of 90% of trade, with a 10% exemption. To prevent countries from exempting nearly all trade, AU trade ministers agreed in December that excluded products may represent no more than 3% of tariff lines and 10% of the value of imports from other African countries.
• Negotiations on rules of origin are critical to prevent both protectionism and the influx of non-African goods, such as those from China, that are minimally processed on the continent to qualify as African goods.
• Full liberalisation of tariffs on trade in goods is estimated by UNCTAD to increase intra-African exports by 33% in value, raise most African countries' GDPs by 1% to 3%, and increase total African employment by 1.2%.

APA

Institute for Security Studies (2019). AU summit 32: Beyond the hype of Africa’s free trade deal. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/au-summit-32-beyond-the-hype-of-africas-free-trade-deal

Chicago

Institute for Security Studies. AU summit 32: Beyond the hype of Africa’s free trade deal. 2019. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/au-summit-32-beyond-the-hype-of-africas-free-trade-deal.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Institute for Security Studies |title=AU summit 32: Beyond the hype of Africa’s free trade deal |date=8 February 2019 |url=https://issafrica.org/iss-today/au-summit-32-beyond-the-hype-of-africas-free-trade-deal |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{instituteforsecuritystudies2019summit, author = {{Institute for Security Studies}}, title = {{AU summit 32: Beyond the hype of Africa’s free trade deal}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2019}, month = feb, url = {https://issafrica.org/iss-today/au-summit-32-beyond-the-hype-of-africas-free-trade-deal}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }