Investment Facilitation to be central to impending AfCFTA negotiations, ECA Director says

Abstract

Investment Facilitation is increasingly becoming an area of focus in the investment discourse in Africa, and is expected to be central to the impending African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) negotiations of the protocol on investment, said Stephen Karingi of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). Noting that foreign direct investment (FDIs) in Africa had declined as a result of the COVID19 pandemic, he said investment policy makers had a huge challenge to redress the trend, and that revitalizing the flows was fundamental to the recovery of the continent’s economy. The roundtable was jointly organized by the ECA, the International Trade Centre (ITC), the German Development Institute (DIE), the African Union Commission (AUC), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Emphasizing on global interconnectedness, the WEF President, Børge Brend, said the world needed to act together for a recovery from the pandemic that is based on trade and investment.