Economist and University of Ghana lecturer, Professor Godfred Bopkin, has urged African businesses to take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to expand beyond national markets and build enterprises capable of competing globally.
He said the continent’s combined market offered enormous opportunities for businesses to grow, create jobs and improve value addition, but this potential could only be realised if African countries strengthened trade among themselves.
Prof Bopkin said AfCFTA should be viewed not only as a trade agreement but also as a platform through which businesses could improve their production capacity, quality and standards before targeting international markets.
“If we were to pull all our markets together then we are talking about a market with the GDP of more than three trillion dollars,” he said, adding that the continent’s population of about 1.5 billion people represented a significant market for African businesses.
He made the remarks in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the sidelines of the Leicester Alumni Business Forum in Accra.
The forum was held under the theme, “From Local to Continental: Using AfCFTA to Scale African Businesses.”
Prof Bopkin, however, said the continent’s ability to fully benefit from AfCFTA remained constrained by weak physical and economic connectivity among African countries.
He explained that historical patterns of infrastructure development had largely created transport and trade networks designed to connect African economies to markets outside the continent rather than to each other.
According to him, inadequate road, rail, port and air links continue to make the movement of goods between African countries expensive and time-consuming.
He noted that in some instances, goods moving between African countries had to pass through Europe before being redirected to their final destinations, increasing transportation and transaction costs for businesses.
He said similar challenges existed in cross-border payments, making it difficult for businesses to trade efficiently across the continent.
Prof Bopkin said these obstacles should not only be viewed as constraints to AfCFTA but also as opportunities for investment in infrastructure and connectivity.
He identified railways, ports, waterways and air transport as areas with significant investment potential, arguing that improved connectivity would help unlock the commercial benefits of continental integration.
He said stronger intra-African trade could contribute to increased production, job creation, poverty reduction and reduced inequality, while creating opportunities for African businesses to expand their operations.
Prof Bopkin expressed optimism about the prospects of the continent, particularly because of its youthful population, which he said could provide a strong workforce and consumer base for expanded production.
He noted that the average age of Africa’s population was around 19, significantly lower than that of several other regions, and said the demographic advantage could become an important economic asset if young people were equipped with quality education and relevant skills.
He therefore called for greater investment in education and human capital development to ensure that the continent’s young population had the skills required to support increased production and industrial growth.
Prof Bopkin said although AfCFTA faced considerable implementation challenges, the same challenges could create new opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors willing to provide solutions to the continent’s connectivity and trade bottlenecks.
He urged African countries and businesses to move beyond viewing their individual national markets as isolated economies and begin to treat the continent as one large commercial opportunity.
He said doing so would allow businesses to scale domestically, expand across African markets and ultimately develop the capacity to compete more effectively in the global economy.
