Mrs Awani, while delivering her speech on the theme titled “Insurance as an Enabler of Economic Growth for All: Taking Advantage of Free Trade Across Africa” during the 52nd Conference and Annual General Assembly of the African Insurance Organisation (AIO) in Cairo, Egypt, said the success of the AfCFTA and Africa’s industrialisation ambitions would depend largely on the ability of insurers to support trade, infrastructure development, investment and cross-border commerce through effective risk management.

According to the senior official of the Afreximbank, the continent’s dream of creating a single market of 1.5 billion people with a combined GDP of about USD 3.4 trillion cannot be achieved without a robust insurance industry capable of underwriting the risks associated with increased trade and investment flows across the continent.

“While the AfCFTA represents the largest free trade area in the world by number of participating countries, insurance penetration across Africa remains between 2% and 3%, significantly below the global average of 6.8%, creating a major gap in the continent’s economy. No nation can trade beyond the limits of its own capacity to carry risk. If cargo cannot be insured, it does not move. If receivables cannot be covered, they cannot be financed. If political and currency risks cannot be priced and managed, projects do not reach financial close,” she said.

Awani blamed the low level of insurance penetration across the continent as the key factor behind constrained investment, which, in turn, has raised financing costs, apart from forcing a significant portion of African risks to be ceded to foreign markets, resulting in capital flight and reduced domestic capacity.

“The AfCFTA was designed not merely to eliminate tariffs but to transform Africa’s economic structure through industrialisation, stronger regional value chains and increased intra-African trade. Recent data showed Africa’s merchandise trade recovering to USD 1.35 trillion, while intra-African trade rose to USD 206.6 billion and foreign direct investment surged by 75% to USD 97 billion, underscoring the enormous opportunities emerging across the continent,” she stated further.

However, despite these positive signs, fragmented insurance regulations, weak capital markets, inadequate risk data and limited financial inclusion have continued to impede the growth of Africa’s insurance sector. For Awani, the harmonisation of insurance regulations under the AfCFTA framework would enable insurers to operate more seamlessly across borders, apart from achieving economies of scale and building the capacity required to support major infrastructure and trade transactions.

“A continent assembling itself into one market cannot remain a patchwork of small, fragmented and undercapitalised pools of risk,” she stated.

The Afreximbank executive also highlighted several initiatives being deployed by her bank, with the goal of supporting continental trade. Prominent among them is the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), which currently connects 27 countries and more than 180 banks and fintechs, significantly reducing transaction costs and settlement times for cross-border payments. Then solutions like the Trans-Africa Bond Alliance and AfrexInsure have been tailored as strategic platforms designed to deepen African underwriting capacity, facilitate trade and finance and retain more insurance premiums on the continent.

“The continent must urgently reverse the long-standing practice of exporting a substantial share of insurance premiums to foreign markets through excessive reinsurance arrangements. Historically, African insurers have ceded between 70% and 90% of premiums in specialised sectors such as energy, aviation and large commercial risks to offshore reinsurers, depriving the continent of capital, expertise and underwriting experience,” Awani said.

She also informed that AfrexInsure, established in 2022, has already supported transactions across more than 25 African countries with over USD 20 billion in sums insured, while prioritising the use of African underwriting capacity before seeking support outside the continent.

While maintaining that insurance should no longer be viewed as a peripheral financial service but as essential economic infrastructure that lowers the capital cost, improves bankability, supports trade and ultimately enables sustainable growth, Awani concluded, ‘There comes a moment in the life of every economy when it must learn to carry more of its own risk.’ For Africa, that moment is now.”

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The report, stating that currency conversions alone are costing Africa USD 5 billion every year, mentioned, “This increases the cost of intra-Africa trade, which is still grappling with other barriers such as customs procedures, regulatory divergences, border management issues and high cost of transport and operations. Africans pay a premium, especially those who live in countries whose currencies are not easily convertible into major international currencies such as the US dollar or the euro.”

“African citizens must often convert several times from their home currencies into intermediate currencies and then finally their desired currency, losing out on the exchange rate at each stage. Africa loses approximately USD 5 billion per year to currency conversion costs,” the Mo Ibrahim Foundation remarked.

Talking about Africa’s free market roadmap, the full implementation of the African continental free trade area (AfCFTA) agreement will boost intra-continental trade to 53%, from around 18% of Africa’s current trade, apart from growing the manufacturing sector by USD 1 trillion. The agenda also eyes generating income worth USD 470 billion, apart from creating 14 million jobs by 2035.

The AfCFTA, one of the main flagships of the African Union’s (AU) “Agenda 2063”, entered into force in May 2019, aiming to create the world’s largest single market by progressively eliminating tariffs on most goods, reducing non-tariff barriers (NTBs), harmonising trade regulations, and improving trade-related infrastructure.

The Mo Ibrahim report, however, presents limited currency convertibility as a main challenge for swift trade operations.

“Both the AfCFTA Secretariat and RECs (regional economic communities) are working on these challenges, which require strong political commitment at the country level, and could also benefit from the exchange of expertise and best practices from other economic unions,” it stated.

“The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), which was launched in 2022 by the AU and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), is a key instrument to resolving the long-standing issue of African countries trading with one another using foreign currencies and has become a core part of Africa’s current financial architecture,” reported The East African, while citing the study’s observations.

Papss is a centralised payment and settlement platform that allows African businesses to pay and recipients to receive funds in their own local currencies through an African institution. This process also removes the need for full currency convertibility by handling conversion within a dedicated system, apart from using central banks as settlement anchors.

“Even if a currency is not internationally traded, if it is recognised within PAPSS, it can be traded with at a fairer rate. Overall, this system reduces US dollar dependence, improves monetary sovereignty as countries and boosts the continent’s financial integration by moving it closer to a single payments market without requiring an intermediary currency or even a single pan-African currency,” the Mo Ibrahim Foundation remarked.

“Soft mobility of goods and services around the continent, which is key to facilitating intra-continental trade, is strangled not only by customs fees but also by numerous NTBs, often behind the border, such as sanitary and phytosanitary barriers and labelling and packaging standards,” it added further.

Stating that free movement of people, goods and services is key to both economic integration and regular migration within Africa, the think tank said, “Enhanced mobility and connectivity are both key to accelerating continental integration and the swift implementation of the AfCFTA, as well as to facilitate and encourage regular migrations within the continent. The AfCFTA is making progress reducing tariff barriers across the continent, trade and mobility. However, they are often blocked by NTBs such as custom procedures, regulatory divergences and border management issues.”

The AfCFTA envisions creating a fully integrated African Economic Community through six sequential stages over roughly 34 years that, by 2028, will culminate in a single African market with free movement of people, goods and services; a central bank; and eventually a single currency-based continental monetary union. As per its roadmap, strong regional economic communities such as the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) will first integrate internally, then gradually merge to form continent-wide institutions.

The pan-African currency goal will be among the final pieces of the puzzle that will convert the dream of the integrated African Economic Community into a reality. However, the target year 2028 looks like an impossible one, as achieving a single currency by that deadline looks unrealistic, with the high currency conversion cost now presenting another steep challenge.

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Yemi Kale, Group Chief Economist and Managing Director of Research at Afreximbank, said in the report’s foreword that more than a trade agreement, AfCFTA serves as an economic stabilisation mechanism in a fragmenting world. The official further explained that by expanding intra-African trade and reducing tariff barriers, the continent can decrease its exposure to external shocks (especially geopolitics), while building regional value chains in sectors like agro-processing, pharmaceuticals, and digital services.

Kale, while interacting with Nigerian NewsDirect, emphasised that integration alone is insufficient without adequate trade finance, which he described as a critical transmission channel for real-sector expansion.

He highlighted that African firms, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), remain disproportionately affected by trade finance gaps.

“Bridging these gaps is essential for industrialisation and employment generation, making the strengthening of the continent’s financial architecture a high macroeconomic priority,” he said.

The Afreximbank report sees the overall continental trade growing by 10% in 2026, and despite global geopolitical tensions and trade tariff-related headwinds, African economies have shown significant resilience.

“The continent’s output expanded by 4.2% in 2025, up from 3.4% in 2024, supported by robust domestic demand, strong export performance, service sector growth, and renewed infrastructure investments. However, the economic landscape remains vulnerable due to an overdependence on commodities, which exposes the continent to price volatility,” the report noted.

“Data shows that total trade in 2025 reached USD 1.4 trillion, with intra-African trade accounting for approximately 18% of that figure, bolstered by the ongoing integration efforts under AfCFTA. Africa is well-positioned to enhance its growth prospects through a gradual recovery from recent global shocks. GDP growth is expected to rise marginally to 4.3% in 2026 before expanding to 4.4% in the medium term,” Afreximbank concluded.

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Touted as a “holy grail” for boosting intra-African trade, spurring industrialisation, and accelerating economic development, the AfCFTA agreement carried immense hopes when it was signed in 2018. Yet six years on, analysts warn that AfCFTA is at risk of joining the list of Africa’s missed opportunities.

A few months back, in May, the continent quietly marked the sixth anniversary of AfCFTA’s signing, a milestone that arrived with more frustration than fanfare. In principle, nearly the entire African Union (AU) supports AfCFTA’s ideals. Almost 54 out of 55 African countries have signed on, with only Eritrea holding out after openly questioning the deal’s value. Of those signatories, 48 have officially ratified the agreement.

In practice, however, even countries that ratified appear stuck at the level of rhetoric. In fact, three ratifying states—Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger—are currently suspended from AU activities after military coups, slowing their participation.

This gap between vision and action is becoming increasingly glaring. Africa Kiiza, a researcher and PhD fellow at Germany’s Universität Hamburg, describes the situation bluntly: “The aspirations and ambitions of AfCFTA are brilliant. The problem was in putting the cart before the horse.”

In Kiiza’s view, African leaders were so eager for a continent-wide trade pact that they rushed to sign a “shell” agreement long before resolving the many practical obstacles that stand in the way. Now, as political and economic landscapes shift both within Africa and globally, tackling those unresolved hurdles is proving to be a Herculean task.

Lofty goals vs languid reality

From the outset, AfCFTA was imbued with sky-high expectations. It was enshrined as a flagship project of the AU’s Agenda 2063, elevating it as a linchpin for Africa’s future development. On paper, the agreement’s goals paint a rosy picture of transformation.

By creating a single continental market for goods and services, a market of 1.3 billion people with a combined GDP of roughly $3.4 trillion, AfCFTA aims to fundamentally reshape African economies. The ultimate vision is to pave the way for a continental customs union and eventually an African Common Market, echoing the progression of the European Union.

More immediately, AfCFTA proponents tout a laundry list of concrete benefits anticipated from freer trade within Africa. These include boosting intra-African trade by 53%, addressing the historically low trade integration on the continent (where, before AfCFTA, African countries traded only 12–18% of their goods among each other). They also include expanding the manufacturing sector by $1 trillion, as reduced barriers encourage industrial growth and diversification beyond raw commodity exports. And generating $450–$470 billion in income gains, as businesses access new markets and more efficient value chains take shape.

The union also hopes to create 14 million jobs, from farms and factories to logistics and services, helping absorb Africa’s growing labour force and lift 50 million people out of poverty, roughly 1.5% of the continent’s population, by opening opportunities and reducing consumer prices through competition.

Such outcomes would be revolutionary. Achieving them, however, depends on translating the agreement’s text into real changes on the ground—and that is where progress has been painfully slow. Now, six years down the line, the cart-before-horse nature of AfCFTA’s launch has become starkly evident.

Consider the basics: AfCFTA’s administrative backbone, the AfCFTA Secretariat, was only established in 2020 and remains surprisingly reliant on external support. In fact, the German development agency GIZ has been footing much of the bill, including financing the Secretariat’s operations, supporting technical negotiations, and helping draft legal frameworks.

To be sure, GIZ’s assistance has been invaluable in moving the agreement forward on paper, for instance by helping finalise rules of origin in many sectors, setting up a dispute settlement mechanism, and developing protocols for digital trade. Yet this dependence exposes an uncomfortable truth about African integration efforts.

Slow start to a long journey

After years of preparation and delays, trading under the AfCFTA officially commenced on January 1, 2021. However, the volume of commerce happening under AfCFTA preferences remains well below initial expectations. Before the agreement, formal trade within Africa was only about 15% of the continent’s total trade, lagging far behind regions like Europe or Asia.

Today, that figure is still stuck below 20%. In 2022, the AfCFTA Secretariat launched a “Guided Trade Initiative” to jump-start commerce under the new rules. This pilot programme selected eight countries to begin exchanging specific goods under AfCFTA conditions, testing customs procedures, documentation, and tariff reductions in practice.

The good news is that intra-African trade is showing slight growth. In 2023, trade between African countries rose about 7.7%, reaching $208 billion, according to the African Export-Import Bank. There are also signs of gathering momentum, and by the end of 2024, 31 of the 45 AfCFTA-ratifying states had initiated at least some form of trade under the AfCFTA framework, a big jump from only seven countries trading under AfCFTA in early 2023.

Moreover, African negotiators have continued ironing out the deal’s details by adopting new protocols on investment, intellectual property, and competition policy to complement the core trade agreement. These developments signal that African governments are, on paper, committed to building out the AfCFTA architecture and gradually bringing more countries and products on board.

Despite these positive steps, the scale of trade happening under AfCFTA rules remains a drop in the ocean relative to Africa’s ambitions. The agreement’s target to boost intra-African trade to 53% of total trade by 2030 or shortly thereafter would put Africa on par with other continents where regional trade is dominant. By comparison, about 68% of Europe’s trade is within Europe, 59% of Asia’s trade is within Asia, and North America stands at 51% internal trade. AfCFTA’s current performance is still far from these levels.

The road to progress

Why has AfCFTA’s promise been so difficult to realise? The truth is that the agreement faces a tangled web of structural, logistical, political, and economic obstacles. Overcoming these will require sustained effort and political will, both of which have been in short supply.

One fundamental challenge is resistance born of economic disparity and fear of unequal gains. Not all African countries are convinced they will benefit equally under AfCFTA, and some of the smallest and poorest states worry they could lose out. Many least-developed countries have historically pursued inward- focused development strategies.

For them, opening up borders feels risky, as it could mean being flooded by imports from larger African economies like South Africa, Nigeria, or Egypt. There is a perception, fair or not, that AfCFTA might primarily serve the interests of Africa’s biggest economies, those most eager to find new markets for their industrial and consumer goods, at the expense of smaller nations that have fewer competitive industries. In other words, critics fear the agreement could turn into a pursuit of profit for Africa’s giants rather than a project in pan-African equity.

Kiiza provides a striking example of the uneven playing field within Africa.

“A US citizen has the luxury of travelling to 24 African countries without a visa. For a Ugandan national, visa-free access applies to only nine countries,” he points out.

This highlights how even basic facilitators of integration, such as free movement of people, are far from reality.

African governments have been hesitant to implement the AU’s Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, fearing migration or security issues. To date, only four countries have ratified that protocol, leaving Africa one of the most visa-restricted regions for its own citizens.

Such reluctance directly undermines the spirit of a continent-wide free trade area, since trade isn’t just about goods and capital—it’s also about the ability of people (business travellers, workers, service providers) to move freely.

Trade itself is beset by examples of counterproductive barriers. Take Ghana and South Africa: Ghana is the world’s second-largest cocoa producer and has a nascent chocolate-making industry. Yet if Ghana wants to export chocolates to South Africa, those products face a hefty 30% tariff upon entry.

Contrast that with chocolates from Switzerland (a non-African country), which enter South Africa tariff-free, thanks to pre-existing trade arrangements. An African product is penalised by African tariffs, while a European product enjoys preferential access. Af- CFTA is supposed to eliminate such inconsistencies, but until its tariff reductions are fully in force, these old rules remain a hindrance.

Then there’s the disparity in economic scale. Burundi’s entire economy is worth only about $3 billion, while Nigeria’s is around $487 billion (the largest in Africa). Yet under AfCFTA’s framework, both countries are theoretically expected to open 97% of their markets to duty-free trade over time. Many economists argue that asking a tiny, fragile economy to liberalise at nearly the same pace and extent as a regional heavyweight is a recipe for trouble.

“The idea that liberalisation and tariff removal before building the capacity of small nations will automatically increase trade is flawed,” Kiiza notes.

He suggests that African leaders need to ‘apply the brakes on political expediency’— in other words, not just rush for feel-good announcements of unity but instead focus on building the fundamental blocks that would allow weaker economies to compete. That includes developing industrial capacity, improving productivity, and strengthening local businesses so they can actually take advantage of a larger market.

Beyond politics and policy, practical obstacles significantly raise the cost of doing business across African borders. Chief among these is the infrastructure conundrum, the simple fact that it is often prohibitively expensive and cumbersome for African companies to move goods to a neighbouring country. Transport networks are underdeveloped and often oriented toward overseas trade rather than intra-African commerce.

For instance, African ports, railways, and roads were historically designed to extract commodities out of Africa to global markets, not to facilitate continental trade. As a result, it can be cheaper to ship goods from Africa to Europe or Asia than to send them overland to the next African country. Maritime transport starkly illustrates this, as an estimated 98% of Africa’s shipping traffic is handled by foreign-owned shipping lines.

These global carriers optimise routes for profit, and it is often more lucrative for them to bring in finished goods from abroad and carry out raw materials rather than facilitate inter-African trade routes.

The imbalance is evident when containers that arrive full of imported products often leave African ports either empty or filled with unprocessed commodities, highlighting how African producers struggle to utilise those same vessels to export within the continent.

On land, rail connectivity between countries is minimal and accounts for as little as 0.1% of freight movement in some estimates, due to underinvestment and incompatible rail systems inherited from colonial times.

Then there are non-tariff barriers (NTBs), a broad category of bureaucratic, regulatory, or informal restrictions that hinder trade just as surely as tariffs do. NTBs have become a favoured tool for governments looking to protect domestic industries or pursue political ends without overtly violating trade agreements.

These include things like import quotas or bans, onerous customs procedures, arbitrary product standards, corruption at checkpoints, and subsidies that give local businesses an edge over imports. Within the East African Community, for example, NTBs cost businesses an estimated $17 million in direct losses in 2023 alone, through goods delayed or turned back at borders. And the problem could be pervasive under AfCFTA if not checked.

Tariff reduction is itself moving more slowly than planned. African negotiators agreed to gradually eliminate tariffs on 97% of tariff lines over 15 years (with a bit more leeway for least-developed countries). The clock is ticking, and the deadline to achieve near-full liberalisation is 2034—less than a decade away. Yet many countries have yet to implement even the initial cuts they signed up for. Some nations find tariffs a vital source of government revenue, and slashing them means losing funds that pay for public services.

Others are genuinely afraid that local firms, often less efficient or more expensive than competitors in neighbouring states, will be forced out of business if markets open too quickly. Many African economies export a narrow range of similar commodities and import manufactured goods. With countries not yet specialising in complementary industries, they worry that free trade would simply pit them against each other in a race to the bottom rather than fostering synergies.

Can AfCFTA succeed?

The coming years will be decisive for AfCFTA. The agreement is not an instant fix but rather a framework that requires continuous negotiation, adjustment, and, above all, implementation. To avoid AfCFTA becoming another well-intentioned plan that fails to deliver, African leaders and institutions will have to confront head-on the challenges that have surfaced.

Firstly, infrastructure and connectivity must be improved. It is often said that “you cannot trade where you cannot travel.” Investing in trans-African highways, modern rail links connecting key trade hubs, improved port facilities, and digitised border systems would dramatically lower the cost and increase the speed of cross-border trade.

Secondly, Africa needs to address the “software” of trade, not just the hardware. This means harmonising regulations, simplifying and unifying customs procedures, fighting corruption at border points, and actively identifying and eliminating non-tariff barriers.

Thirdly, support for smaller economies and vulnerable sectors is crucial to get all countries on board. Recognising that liberalisation has winners and losers, the AfCFTA includes a $10 billion Trade Adjustment Fund intended to help governments offset revenue losses from tariffs and assist industries that might be disrupted.

Perhaps most importantly, Africa must break the colonial economic pattern that still defines its trade. AfCFTA’s promise will ring hollow if countries simply continue to export unprocessed minerals and agricultural goods to each other and import finished products.

True success lies in value addition, like processing cocoa into chocolate, cotton into textiles, or cobalt into batteries. This requires investments in manufacturing, skills, and innovation, and creating a business environment where private-sector players feel confident to build factories and supply chains spanning multiple African countries.

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Baker McKenzie Johannesburg Tax Practice Group partner and head of Tax Virusha Subban

Recently, the World Bank anticipated that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) would raise intra-African trade volumes by 81%, improving Africa’s income by USD 450 billion by 2035. Due to geopolitical issues, significant global actors are diversifying their supply networks, bolstering AfCFTA’s trade boost.

Recent advances in AfCFTA’s protocols, rules, and procedures on commerce, simplified customs procedures, and dispute resolution mechanisms aim to create a single legal framework for the continent, making cross-border trade and investment easier.

The ultimate goal is to eliminate intra-African trade tariffs, reduce unemployment, build infrastructure, and make cross-border trade more competitive and sustainable.

Trade Financing

Afreximbank and the AfDB continue to monitor market trends and offer sustainable solutions to increase intra-African trade. These institutions are supporting market participants in Africa’s trade finance gap by lending more and offering alternative products.

Recent announcements include Afreximbank increasing intra-African trade finance to USD 40 billion by 2026 from USD 20 billion in 2021. An AfCFTA Adjustment Fund will provide money, technical help, grants, and compensation to state parties and private firms to effectively participate in the AfCFTA.

The Transaction Guarantee Instrument, Pan African Payment and Settlement System, and Base Fund of the AfCFTA Adjustment Fund have also impacted intra-African commerce since AfCFTA’s creation.

Role Of The United States

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which gives qualifying sub-Saharan African countries duty-free access to the US market for over 1,800 products, is expected to change or be replaced.

This may change trade patterns, notably with Africa’s preferential treatment of small and medium firms and women- and youth-owned businesses. Smaller African countries that have not benefited from AGOA may soon be allowed to do so.

The US and Africa trade well. The US announced it would invest USD 55 billion in Africa over three years, with USD 15 billion going to “two-way trade and investment commitments, deals, and partnerships that advance key priorities, including sustainable energy, health systems, agribusiness, digital connectivity, infrastructure, and finance.”

The China Prospects

African commerce with China, its greatest trading partner, grows. Chinese customs authorities reported USD 282 billion in trade in 2022 due to rising commodity prices and China’s promotion of African imports.

The Economist Corporate Network, Baker McKenzie, and Silk Road Associates (BRI Beyond 2020) found that 97% of 33 Africa’s poorest governments’ exports to China were tariff- and duty-free.

The research also noted that China still imported most of Africa’s natural resources, but in recent years, China has imported more manufactured commodities from increasingly diverse African countries.

Crucial Minerals

The energy shift has increased the demand for vital minerals, making Africa a key actor due to its huge mineral base. South Africa, Namibia, Ghana, and Zimbabwe are considering ways to process important minerals locally sustainably to maximize benefits.

Africa’s mineral exports are primarily offtakes, limiting earnings. The European Union and United States have stressed the necessity of commodities supply chain risk mitigation and strategic partnerships with responsible essential mineral suppliers.

African commerce’s future is bright, but tackling infrastructure deficiencies, maintaining sustainability, and navigating changing trade ties will be crucial. Despite hurdles, Africa’s involvement in global trade seems likely.

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Experts say Africa’s free trade agreement could boost trade among African nations by 60 percent in just three years. The agreement will join the markets of 50 countries; unite the continent’s 1.27 billion people and its add to its $3.4 trillion nominal GDP.

The African Union (AU) finally launched the operational phase of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), after 17 years of negotiations. African countries with access to ports, railways, and airports will benefit the most from the new trade pact, making it the largest free trade zone in the world.

The agreement will cut tariffs for majority of the country up to 90 percent in the next five years, thereby, easing trade in the continent. African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina told the media that, “Manufacturing, trading in value-added products and strengthening supply chains will allow for markets to grow and for new markets to emerge. SMEs that account for 80 percent of all trade on the continent will benefit, as well as the financial sector, as digital payments will be needed to transact.”

The experts also highlighted the challenges that it could face such as bad transporting facilities, non-existent roads and rail lines, bad governance, corruption, and deeply entrenched bureaucracy. According to Akinwumi Adesina, the lack of infrastructure could be a major challenge. The continent’s infrastructure funding needs are at $130 billion to $170 billion a year, with a gap in the range of $68 billion to $108 billion.

He also added that the mechanics of the deal has to be negotiated. He stressed that the establishment of a digital system for payments converging one country’s currency to another membe’rs is vital before trading starts. The Economic Community of West African States plans to adopt a common trade currency to reduce foreign exchange risk.

The member nations will be provided with $4.8 million by the African Development Bank to set up the free trade zone’s headquarters in Ghana.

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