AfCFTA: “We are not Father Christmas to buy expensive goods from Africa” – GUTA

The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) is calling on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) secretariat to focus on empowering manufacturers on the continent with the right resources to ensure their competitiveness.

According to the Union, the need to trade within the Continent does not mean traders must mandatorily buy from the continent when the price of those goods are higher compared to those outside the continent.

“We are not Father Christmas, we are not going to say that the goods are manufactured in Africa and because we are saying continental free trade we will go and buy some expensive products in Africa, it doesn’t make sense so we have to find the resources to encourage our manufacturers to also be competitive,” President of the Union, Joseph Obeng told MX24 news.

The businessman believes once manufacturers have the required resources, their production cost will be reduced and give them favourable pricing regime, that way, he believes the African market can compete with their European and Asian counterparts.

As part of his suggestions to help leverage the AfCFTA towards ensuring Africa’s prosperity, the GUTA President wants more education to be given to informal traders who make up the majority of informal cross border trade.

”It all boils down  to education. Most of the informal sector are not well so educated on this but they are the main implementers when you talk about cross border trade and yet they lack so much information.

“If you are not able to communicate what the rules of origin are, the continental free trade will be a mess and will not achieve the target it has set for itself,” he added.

The African Continent has since Thursday, January 26, 2023 been having stakeholder dialogues at the Kwahu summit to find actionable ways to realize the creation of a single market for the continent.