Speaking during a sensitisation meeting at his office at Denton Bridge with officials from the Trade Ministry led by Mr. Abdoulie Jammeh, the deputy permanent secretary, Mr. Jallow informed that his company is involved in fish processing and exportation.
According to him, they export to South Africa, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea among other countries, citing that the coming of the AfCFTA will be a good opportunity for them.
In highlighting some of the constraints they faced in exporting to African countries, he cited time factor as one of them, noting that it takes longer time for a container to reach an African destination than Europe. He expressed hope that the AfCFTA would look into the constraints they face.
The AfCFTA Agreement promotes closer economic integration among subscribing countries and will, among other things, enable the region increase intra-regional trade, including fish and fishery products through the elimination of import duties, barriers and distortions to trade such as quotas, and other non-tariff barriers.
Hence, the purpose of the Ministry’s visit to the Atlantic Seafood Company was part of the Ministry’s public sensitisation particularly to the business community on the significance and benefits of the AFCFTA.
The AfCFTA is one of the flagship projects of the Agenda 2063 of the African Union that aimed at integrating Africa’s markets in line with the objectives and principles highlighted in the Abuja Treaty establishing the African Economic Community.
The main objective is to expand and accelerate intra-African trade and increase trade among African countries through the elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers as well as harmonisation of standards, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, custom cooperation and border procedures and other trade related regulations. The realisation of the AfCFTA objectives also requires capacity building and investments in the productive sectors, services and trade related infrastructure.
DPS Jammeh, accompanied by Mr. Ousman Bojang, director of Trade and other officials of the Ministry, informed the Atlantic Seafood Company of the purpose of the agreement and the AfCFTA Guided Trade Initiative, which he said was to kick start commercially meaningful trade under the AfCFTA to promote trade among African countries.
Looking at the trade between African countries, he said they mostly trade with the rest of the world particularly the Western World, Europe, America and the Asia than among the African countries. According to him, this is the reason why the African authorities agreed to establish the continental free trade area where businesses invest in Africa can be able to trade in Africa and in the process the African countries would gradually improve intra-Africa trade.
He added that when it comes to manufacturing in The Gambia, it is not yet developed to be able to take advantage of AfCFTA. He, however, noted that there are number of companies that have the capacity to participate in AfCFTA and Atlantic SeaFood is one of them.
DPS Jammeh also spoke at length on the Trade-in-Service and the Guided Trade Initiative. According to him, Trade in Services, is also one of the areas that The Gambia has capacity to participate in the AfCFTA and the Guided Trade Initiative is a deliberate initiative by the AU Authority to be able to kick start commercially meaningful trading under the AfCFTA.
