Wamkele Mene - Afrikan Heroes

AfCFTA Fully Supports Bid of Made in Africa to Buy Vlisco

July 28, 2021

Wamkele Mene, Secretary General of AfCFTA

Efforts by Made in Africa to buy over global textile manufacturing firm Vlisco to help deepen regional competitiveness in the textiles and clothing sector has received the backing of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat. According to the Secretariat, “our strategic partner, a leading African financial institution, supported a $200 million bid by Made in Africa to purchase Vlisco, a textile company that sells almost exclusively in Africa. Whilst we respect the rights of parties in a private transaction, as a matter of public interest for Africa’s market integration, regional and global competitiveness, we do find it curious that the bid of Made in Africa was rejected by the seller. We totally support the bid by Made in Africa, which is financially backed by one of the leading trade finance banks in Africa”.

The objective of the AfCFTA is to accelerate industrialisation in Africa, consolidate an integrated market of over 1.3 billion people with a combined GDP of US$3.4 trillion and to place Africa on a sustained path to regional and global competitiveness. At the heart of Africa’s global and regional competitiveness is the textiles and clothing sector. This sector employs thousands of Africans, mainly women and contributes to Africa’s industrialisation.

Whilst we respect the rights of parties in a private business transaction to structure their business transactions as they see fit, we do believe that the sale of Vlisco to Made in Africa, is in the broader economic and trade interests of Africa, hence as the AfCFTA Secretariat we are following this matter closely. We therefore urge the successful conclusion of this transaction in favour of Made in Africa, which is backed by the leading financial institution, and led by Mr. Kojo Annan, the entrepreneurial son of the late Mr. Kofi Annan, along with other African fashion and business luminaries.

“We cannot express a value judgement as to the reasons for the bid of Made in Africa – which was the higher bid – being rejected. We do however firmly believe that where an African company puts forward a formidable bid for a foreign company that appears to profit exclusively from sales to Africa, supported by a leading African trade finance bank, the African company has a reasonable expectation to successfully conclude the transaction in favour of Africa” says Wamkele Mene, Secretary General of AfCFTA.

We strongly urge reconsideration of this matter, the entire African continent and business community of Africa is following this matter very closely, African entrepreneurship and global competitiveness must be treated fairly.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

AfCFTA Implementation Will Not Take-Off Soon— Secretary-General

January 1, 2021

Contrary to high expectations among Africa’s business community over the impending take off of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), there are indications that necessary modalities are not yet in place for the implementation of the trade agreement. This was made known by the AfCFTA Secretary-General who disclosed that it might take a while to reap the meaningfulness of the agreement. Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the AfCFTA Secretariat has said that the full implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will be a long journey as Africa needs the right equipment for customs authorities at the border to facilitate the fast and efficient trade which goes into effect on January 1.

Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the AfCFTA Secretariat

Mr. Mene said the 33 nations have agreed to ratify the agreement; however, many lack the customs and infrastructure to fully implement continental free trade. “It’s going to take us a very long time,” he said.

“If you don’t have the roads, if you don’t have the right equipment for customs authorities at the border to facilitate the fast and efficient transit of goods . . . if you don’t have the infrastructure, both hard and soft, it reduces the meaningfulness of this agreement,” he added.

Mr. Mene revealed that the purpose of the agreement is to move Africa from the “colonial commodity export economic model”, and use tariffs as a tool for industrial development.

“We want to move Africa away from this colonial economic model of perpetually being an exporter of primary commodities for processing elsewhere,” he said. “We want to stop approaching tariffs as a tool for revenue. We want tariffs to be a tool for industrial development.”

He cited bureaucratic challenges in the continent that might hinder tariff-free trade, noting Ethiopia’s decision to ban foreign investors from its financial services, which contravenes AfCFTA rules.

“I’m not saying countries must rush to dispute settlement. All I’m saying is that, if they do, the jurisprudence will bring clarity to the body of trade law that we’ve developed in the form of this agreement,” he said.

He added that AfreximBank is working to implement a continental trading platform to enable smaller businesses to trade efficiently in the continent without currency difficulties.

Mr. Mene warned that the AfCFTA created some losers and not enough winners and said there might be backlash to free trade in the continent.

“Often in trade agreements the big winners are the already industrialised countries and the big corporations who can access the new markets literally overnight,” he said.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Why AfCFTA Implementation Was Postponed Till 2021

May 4, 2020

Secretary-General of the AfCFTA, Wamkele Mene

For those hoping that the implementation of the African continental free trade agreement would still take place this year, Secretary-General of the AfCFTA, Wamkele Mene has stated that as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the agreement’s commencement date has been postponed till further notice.

“The Covid-19 situation has caused a major disruption. Governments are now engaged in a fight against the pandemic. It is obviously not possible to commence trade as we had intended on 1 July under the current circumstances,” Secretary-General Mene said.

“I think that’s the responsible thing to do,” Mene continued, “I don’t think it would be appropriate when people are dying to be focused on meeting the 1 July deadline. Instead, all governments should be allowed to concentrate their efforts on fighting the pandemic and saving lives at home.”

Here Is All You Need To Know

Here are The Key Points You Should Know About the AfCFTA Agreement:

Prior to its being postponed, AfCFTA is a free trade agreement among African countries, who are signatories to the Agreement. The CFTA is consistent with the World Trade Organisation rules relating to Free Trade Agreements. A free-trade agreement is an agreement among a group of two or more countries whereby the duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce are eliminated on substantially all the trade between the countries in products originating from the countries.

The Key Targets Of The Agreement

The Agreement wants to create a single market for goods and services in Africa and to permit more people to move around any country in Africa with minimum visa requirements.
It also seeks to create a market that is less free from custom duty and tariffs.
It seeks to make movement of money and capital across African countries freer.
The Agreement also hopes that, if it ever becomes successful, there would be established a Continental Customs Union that would be make issues of customs duty and levy less demanding in Africa.
The Agreement seeks better ways of bringing more industries to Africa as well as opening up its agricultural and food sectors.
The operational phase of the AfCFTA was launched during the 12th Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union in Niamey, Niger on 7 July 2019. The AfCFTA will be governed by five operational instruments, i.e. the Rules of Origin; the online negotiating forum; the monitoring and elimination of non-tariff barriers; a digital payments system and the African Trade Observatory.
AfCFTA is an opportunity for countries and companies to help each other grow, as they have done in other regions. But trade liberalization has the potential to damage the poorest within those countries, which is why it is so important to have supportive policies. The speakers laid out several challenges and solutions.

*Without being postponed, AfCFTA would have been one of the highlights of 2020*

Though already in force legally, several details of the agreement still need to be deliberated on in phases as part of the process, with an initial July deadline set to start trading of goods and services under the new tariff. But the African Union can longer have its May meeting in South Africa to finalize the agreement, as earlier planned, due to disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

A new date will be announced by the AU assembly for the implementation of the agreement, Mene said, with reports suggesting the new commencement date might be January 2021. “The political commitment remains, the political will remains to integrate Africa’s market and to implement the agreement as was intended,” the top official added.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer.