Secretary-General of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Wamkele Mene, has disclosed plans by the AfCFTA Secretariat to launch a payment and settlement digital platform.
The payment and settlement digital platform, according to the Secretary-General will augment efforts of enhancing market access within the African region.
“I am pleased to announce to you that we are collaborating very closely with the Afrexim (African Export-Import) Bank and other stakeholders on the African continent to establish an efficient and affordable payment and settlement digital platform for cross border transactions through a digitized pan African payments and settlements system in support of the implementation of AfCFTA.”
“By providing the requisite settlement backstop and liquidity, the Afrexim Bank shall be given practical means to our shared objective of an integrated market in Africa. Without an efficient and cost effect pan African payment platform, the private sector will continue to be constrained in accessing new markets. Under the AfCFTA we are working to ensure the platform is rolled as soon as trading starts in Jan 2021,” Mr Mene said at the 2nd National Conference on the AfCFTA in Accra on Tuesday.
Present also at the 2nd National Conference on the AfCFTA, was President Akufo-Addo who tasked Ghanaian businesses to take advantage of the AfCFTA which is set to commence in January 2021.
“Empowered Ghanaian enterprises should be frontline actors in this new exciting journey in Africa’s economy. We owe it to generations unborn to ensure the biggest trading bloc on the globe whose outcomes will be rewarding to all Africans in which we will assist in attaining the Africa we want, does not falter,” he noted.
The AfCFTA when fully implemented and started next year, will be the world’s largest free trade area since the formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Estimates from the Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) suggest that the AfCFTA covering a market of more than 1.2 billion people, with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $3.4 trillion, has the potential to boost intra-African trade by 52.3 percent
