LOW PRODUCTION HINDERS INDUSTRY TO TAP INTO AFCFTA

MBABANE – Eswatini Sugar Association (ESA) said they still do not have enough sugar production in order to tap into the African Continental Free Trade Area.

ESA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Banele Nyamane said over the past few years, they had slumping production, leading them not to have enough sugar to supply the wide markets opened by the AfCFTA. Nyamane said at the moment they were still not utilising the AfCFTA but utilising their market allocations in Kenya. He said, however, they were watching closer to the AfCFTA.

Initiative

Recently, the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade Manqoba Khumalo, revealed that currently, the Fridge Factory was the only local company to have started trading under the AfCFTA Guided Trade Initiative (GTI).
In a recent interview with this publication, Fridge Factory Technical Director Ryden Allmark confirmed that their company was already using the AfCFTA certificates. He said the certificate is issued for each individual shipment that is sent to the particular destination. “The first time we used an AfCFTA certificate was in 2022,” he said.

Agreement

The director said the whole point of the Africa free trade agreement is to allow trade across the entire continent. He highlighted that Eswatini is part of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) as well as SADC. He said these two agreements allowed them to easily trade amongst those member States; however, now with the AfCFTA, they can theoretically reach all African countries.

“However, there is a phase-out period of duties that were existing prior to the agreement, and this period is very long,” he said. Allmark shared that it was fairly easy for the company to send to new countries as they were already a large exporter; however, each new country brought its own challenges with regards to documents required and processes required in order to clear the goods. He said they were learning the process for each new country and the next batch of goods sent would then be much easier.

Through AfCFTA, Eswatini is targeting an annual regional export growth of at least 10 per cent and it is forging towards becoming a well-diversified economy. It is also and is on course to diversifying its manufacturing base, which accounts for 37 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) – the highest in the southern African region. The Kingdom of Eswatini, as a member of the African Union (AU), signed the agreement establishing the AfCFTA in March 2018, during the Summit of Heads of State and Governments, held in Kigali, Rwanda.

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