Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, chair of the advisory board of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council (CWEIC), has urged US investors to act promptly and participate in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
“When you have a continent with 1.3 trillion people, that is constructing a single market, if you don’t wake up to it, it will be too late, and you can’t blame China when it happens,” Otchere-Darko added.
Therefore, I want to tell Americans that Africa offers potential.
According to him, a customs union will be put in place as part of the AfCFTA, drastically reducing imports.
“We are building a new Africa and that new Africa is a single market, Africa. Potentially the largest single market in the World. We are going to have a customs union, some may think that it’s not possible but it’s possible. In fact, the first customs union in the world happened in Africa.”
The time is now
Addressing an insightful trade and round table discussion on US-Ghana investment opportunities, he said the time to invest in Ghana is now until the free trade area minimizes the level of import from America when full, trade protocols set in.
“It was a South African customs union that was in 1910. So we are going to have a customs union and once we do that it means that we are not going to rely so much on import because the rules of origin is set in. And there will be higher duties for things coming in but within a single market there will be no charges.”
He advised US investors not to lack behind their Chinese counterparts but to take several opportunities in the industry which he said remains a major source of transformation in Ghana.
“So I think what the Chinese are recognising [and I am just using Ghana as an example] is that they are setting industries here [in Ghana]. And perhaps before America wakes up, the single market would have been in full motion and you would have Chinese industries not just depending on imports into Africa but actually setting up in Africa and taking advantage of the single market.”