The Vietnamese Trade Office in South Africa says that at the 10^th African Union extraordinary summit in Kigali, Rwanda on March 21, 44 African countries officially signed the CFTA, which will come into force within 180 days. At least 22 countries had already approved it after that.

CFTA refers to seven prioritized fields related to trade such as trade policies, infrastructure, finance, information, market integration, productivity improvement and trade facilitation. Member countries pledged to remove taxes for more than 90% products in the future.

With CFTA, Africa has become the free trade area with the largest number of participating countries since the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which creates a common market with 1.2 billion population and GDP of US$2,500 billion.

The Vietnamese Trade Office says trade liberalization in CFTA will reduce costs and allow African consumers to access diversified products at lower prices, which makes local producers more competitive and accelerates the development of chains of value in the region.

Particularly, it also presents challenges for Vietnamese products to enter the market as they must compete in terms of import duties with other African countries. Vietnam has not signed any free trade agreements (FTA) and preferential trade agreements (PTA) with any countries in the region.

However, according to the Trade Office, in the long run together with benefits from the CFTA, the unemployment rate in Africa will drop while inner bloc trade will grow well. African countries will benefit from opening market for goods and services, turning it into a bustling and potential region for trade exchange.

If domestic businesses could grasp chances brought about by the CFTA, the world largest free trade area will open up more opportunities for Vietnamese products to penetrate the region in the coming time. 

Source: vov.vn