Zambia To Increase Intra-African Exports After Free Trade Area Implementation - Minister

Zambia is looking to boost exports to neighboring countries as soon as the African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) goes through ratification and the country joins the mechanism, Zambian Foreign Minister Joseph Malanji told Sputnik on Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th February, 2019) Zambia is looking to boost exports to neighboring countries as soon as the African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) goes through ratification and the country joins the mechanism, Zambian Foreign Minister Joseph Malanji told Sputnik on Wednesday.

Zambian President Edgar Chagwa Lungu signed the CFTA on February 10 at the 32nd summit of the African Union in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. The agreement, which was co-signed by Albert Muchanga, the African Union commissioner for trade and industry, now has to be ratified by Zambia's institutional mechanism.

"We will explore avenues where the country will be a goods basket in agriculture, of course for supplies to neighboring countries, and other commodities that will actually bring Zambia not a dumping ground for goods," Malanji said, asked how Zambia's trade with other African countries would change after the implementation of the CFTA.

Malanji added that the implementation of the free trade area, which will create a single market, followed by free movement and a single Currency union among 49 African Union member states,"should not be long from now," considering the number of countries that have chosen to sign the relevant agreement.

The CFTA was signed in late March 2018 at a summit in the Rwandan city of Kigali. The free trade area will be formally established once it is ratified by 22 countries. In late January, Muchanga said that the agreement required six more ratifications to come into force.