The Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has said it is working on a cross-border trade platform to enhance market access and trade connectivity for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) across the continent.
The digital platform, it said, will enable SMEs to expand their reach and explore growth opportunities in the AfCFTA, while ensuring seamless cross-border trading when the free trade deal takes off in 2021.
“We are exploring various digital-enabled platforms that aim at enhancing market access, trade connectivity of
SMEs to new markets across the continent,” Secretary-General of the AfCFTA, Wamkele Mene told a gathering in Accra.
The portal will connect buyers and sellers, as well as service providers such as financial institutions across the free trade zone, thus, serving as an ecosystem of partners for SMEs to meet their financing and business needs in the new digital economy.
“We intend to launch this digital platform for trade for SMEs in time for the start of trading scheduled for January 2021,” Mr. Mene said.
SMEs account for about 90 percent of businesses and more than 50 percent of employment in Africa.
Digitising the buyer-supplier relationship is key to building robust supply chains, and fundamental to creating a continent-wide trade and investment network.
To achieve that, the AfCFTA Secretariat in collaboration with partners will roll out a vibrant SME Development Programme to help improve Africa’s weak supply chain and promote inclusive trade.
“The benefits of the AfCFTA are not guaranteed and will not happen by chance. The secretariat and the governments will have to ensure that supply-side constraints and other trade barriers are addressed,” Mr. Mene admonished in his remarks.