President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said if Africa will develop and generate wealth and prosperity for its people, the success of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will be critical towards that goal.
President Akufo-Addo said while 16 per cent of Africa’s combined GDP was from intra-Africa trade, 72 per cent of Europe’s combined GDP came from intra-European trade.
Those two statistics, President Akufo-Addo stated “tell us everything about the relative economic development of Africa and Europe.”
Speaking at the Ghana-South Africa Business Forum in Accra on Sunday, with the visiting President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa in attendance, President Akufo-Addo said Africa needed to focus and push up traumatically intra-African trade, which is the panacea to generating wealth and prosperity on the continent.
“And as God will have it at this critical moment of Africa’s history, the AfCFTA’s Secretariat is located here in Ghana, and the first Secretary-General of the AfCFTA is a South African, who had shown a great deal of attitude and enthusiasm for the work,” he stated.
President Akufo-Addo said the private sector was pivotal in the development of AfCFTA and, therefore urged them to take on the responsibility of moving the process of regional integration and regional trade forward.
He reassured the South African business community that policy directives of the government would continue to be the position of Ghana.
President Akufo-Addo said Ghana and South Africa had agreed to set up a Business Advisory Council — a joint committee for trade and investments — to become part of the architecture of the Bi-National Commission which would maintain constantly, the dialogue and interaction between the two business communities.
The President said he was encouraged by the position of President Ramaphosa on many key issues affecting both South Africa and Ghana, as well as the larger continent of Africa.
Key amongst them, President Alufo-Addo said, was the ‘fight’ President Ramaphosa was leading for the domestic production of vaccines, and the call for some emergency treatment in the TIPPS Agreement that relates to intellectual property rights to the manufacturing of vaccines.
“It’s one that you have Ghana’s strongest support. We cannot enter the next round of the pandemic and are dependent again on people who hoard vaccines when the world needs them. We are determined this time around, to develop our capacity to produce vaccines,” President Akufo-Addo stated.
Ghana Government has set up a National Vaccine Institute which would lead the process in the country to develop and manufacture vaccines.
“And to that extent, we are in full support of the position you have taken and we are hoping that we can work together in these areas for the future”, President Akufo-Addo stated.
On his part, President Ramaposa commended the resilience of the business community and their ability to sustain their businesses through these trying and difficult times of COVID-19.
The South African President said a critical condition for the recovery of the economies of African countries was the successful rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and the continued adherence to the measures and protocols put in place to keep citizens safe and alive.
He said while more than 220 million vaccine doses had been administered on the African continent, only 6.7 per cent of the African’s population was fully vaccinated.
As of November 28, 2021, Africa had administered a total of around 235 million doses of vaccine against the coronavirus.
That, President Ramaphosa said, “is simply not acceptable and is also not enough if we are to revive and rebuild our economies that had been made fragile by COVID-19.”
He said equitable access to vaccines was the best way to mitigate the economic, social and health consequences of the pandemic.
“That is why South Africa, together with India has co-sponsored a proposal at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for a temporary TRIPS waiver to ensure access to COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.”
President Ramaphosa urged all African countries to rally behind this proposal because the fastest and effective way to vaccinate “our population is if we are allowed to manufacture our vaccines and at the same time, build our own domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing capability.
Rex Mainoo Yeboah, ISD
