African Continental Free Trade Agreement

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The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) , French . Zone de libre-échange continentale africaine (ZLECA) , is an African free trade agreement between 54 member states of the African Union  (AU).

Map of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement
  • Agreement ratified
  • Agreement signed in March 2018, not ratified
  • Agreement signed in July 2018 or later, not ratified (as of July 7, 2019)

    • It regulates the establishment of the African Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). An internal market is to be created on the basis of the free trade area . The agreement entered into force on May 30, 2019, after 22 African countries ratified it in April 2019. So far, the agreement has had the character of a declaration of intent on the basis of which a customs and currency union, a common market and possibly an African economic community are to be built at a later date . Eritrea has so far been the only member state of the AU to refuse to participate in the free trade area.

    The agreement as a master agreement acts establishing the free trade zone, attachments and protocols added, where market regulations for trade with goods and services , competition , investment , intellectual property rights to protect intellectual property have been agreed and dispute settlement mechanisms.

    history

    The AfCFTA is the result of years of efforts to bring together the existing regional trade blocs in Africa and to facilitate foreign trade for African entrepreneurs . At the AU summit in 2012, the African governments set a deadline of the end of 2017 for the agreement. A decisive step in 2014 was the agreement to remove trade barriers between the East African Community  (EAC), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Eastern and Southern African Common Market (Comesa).

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ African Free Trade Area - 54 of the 55 AU members joined. Retrieved on July 7, 2019 (German).
    2. ^ African states agree massive trade bloc (en-GB) . In: BBC News , March 21, 2018. 
    3. ↑ AfricaNews: Forty-four countries sign historic African Union free trade agreement | Africa News (s) . In: Africanews . Retrieved March 21, 2018. 
    4. ↑ Aisha Salaudeen, CNN Business: Nigeria wants to join Africa's vast free trade area. Retrieved July 5, 2019 .
    5. ↑ Made in Africa , taz, July 5, 2019
    6. ↑ African leaders launch landmark 55-nation trade zone (en-GB) . In: Deutsche Welle , July 7, 2019. Retrieved July 10, 2019. 
    7. ↑ United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, African Union and African Development Bank (ed.): Assessing Regional Integration in Africa VIII: Bringing the Continental Free Trade Area About . Addis Ababa October 2017, p. 69 ( tralac.org [PDF]).
    8. ↑ Gerhard Erasmus: How will the AfCFTA be established and its Legal Instruments be implemented? In: trade law center (ed.): Tralac Discussions . Stellenbosch ( tralac.org [accessed April 16, 2018]).
    9. ↑ Dominic Johnson: Free trade agreement for all of Africa: Better "Made in Africa" . In: The daily newspaper: taz . March 21, 2018, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed July 8, 2019]).