AfCFTA: North African Representatives Call for Accelerated Negotiations on E-Commerce

Abstract

The ECA Office for North Africa held on Wednesday 14 October 2020 a webinar on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the mitigation of the COVID-19 Impact on trade strategies in North Africa. The meeting provided representatives of trade ministries, private sector representatives and academics from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia with an opportunity to share their experiences in using national trade strategies to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on populations’ health and access to food, as well as the pandemic’s repercussions on foreign trade. The meeting came up with several recommendations including: Making up for negotiation delays regarding e-commerce, as it has significantly grown in importance since the start of the ongoing crisis; Speeding up negotiations on services and the harmonization of technical norms and regulations to reduce non-tariff barriers to trade; Ensuring that rules of origin benefit member countries first.