AfCFTA has launched a digital hub to promote trade on the continent.

A digital platform created by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat has been made available in an effort to facilitate trade on the African continent.

The AfCFTA Hub platform links all enterprises to ensure the success of the free trade area. It is an interconnect clearing house for national government, intergovernmental, corporate, and public digital and collaboration platforms.

“It is important to ensure the centrality of SMEs, startups and female entrepreneurs as we strive to build the world’s most inclusive, most innovative and most integrated Single Market.”  AfCFTA Secretary General Wamkele Mene.

The hub is intended to develop into a single, reliable directory of the services required to help small players traverse the AfCFTA, making it the most inclusive Free Trade Area in the world.

One of the seven nations chosen to begin trading inside the AfCFTA framework during a pilot period to examine the environmental, legal, and trade policy foundations for intra-African trade is Kenya.

To expedite the AfCFTA’s implementation after the choice, the nation has unveiled its National AfCFTA Implementation Strategy.

In line with Kenya’s national development goals and aspirations, including the Big Four Agenda and the Integrated National Export Development and Promotion Strategy (INEDPS), the Strategy defines key export products and sectors for goods and services.

Other African nations like Zambia, Namibia, Malawi, and Ghana are well along in the process of putting the AfCFTA Hub platform and guided pilot into operation.

The ProPer Seals system (www.properseals.org), a subsidiary module of the platform to address the risks of market liberalization for supply chains, is intended to prevent vices like dumping, smuggling, counterfeiting, and illicit trading that might flourish if adequate protections are not put in place.

The ProPer supply chain security system is just one of the key elements of the AfCFTA Hub platform, which also includes e-logistics, a marketplace for digital transactions, regulatory harmonisation, and a trade facilitation mechanism to reduce what is known as “non-tariff barriers,” or restrictions on free and open trade.

The AfCFTA gives Africa the chance to establish the largest free trade area in the world, which could bring together more than 1.2 billion people in an economic bloc with a gross domestic product (GDP) worth at least $2.5 trillion and usher in a new phase of growth.