{"id":3598,"date":"2019-07-06T00:12:37","date_gmt":"2019-07-06T00:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=3598"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:23","slug":"nigeria-will-join-africas-vast-free-trade-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/07\/06\/nigeria-will-join-africas-vast-free-trade-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria Will Join Africa&#8217;s Vast Free Trade Area"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By Aisha Salaudeen,\u00a0<\/strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/business\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>CNN Business<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Africa&#8217;s biggest\neconomy has belatedly agreed to join a huge free trade agreement aimed at\nboosting manufacturing across the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nigeria will sign the Africa Continental Free\nTrade Agreement (AfCFTA) at a summit of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/au.int\/en\/newsevents\/20190707\/12th-extraordinary-summit-afcfta\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">African Union<\/a>&nbsp;that starts in Niger on July 7, the\nNigerian presidency announced on its official Twitter account late on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Let me state unequivocally that trade is\nimportant for us as a nation and to all nations. Economic progress is what\nmakes the world go around. Our position is very simple, we support free trade\nas long as it is fair and conducted on an equitable basis,&#8221; President\nMuhammadu Buhari said in the statement posted on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The AfCFTA&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2019\/05\/30\/business\/afcfta-african-trade-agreement\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">came into force in May<\/a>&nbsp;after clearing a key procedural hurdle and being\nratified by the parliaments of 24 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It aims to bring all 54 members of the African\nUnion (AU) together in a single market of 1.2billion people by\nremoving trade barriers such as tariffs across Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The deal is expected to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2019\/05\/09\/africa\/au-passport-free-trade-area-intl\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">boost regional trade<\/a>&nbsp;and allow companies to expand and enter\nnew markets. Manufacturing industry currently accounts for only&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/data.worldbank.org\/indicator\/NV.IND.MANF.ZS\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">about 10%<\/a>&nbsp;of the African Union&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/au.int\/en\/ti\/cfta\/about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">combined GDP<\/a>&nbsp;of\n$3.4 trillion and the trade deal could make the sector more competitive and\nproductive. <a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2019\/07\/03\/business\/nigeria-signs-afcfta-intl\/index.html\">Read more\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Aisha Salaudeen,\u00a0CNN Business Africa&#8217;s biggest economy has belatedly agreed to join a huge free trade agreement aimed at boosting manufacturing across the continent. Nigeria will sign the Africa Continental&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}