(4 minutes read)
The Fourth Africa-Türkiye Economic and Business Forum (TABEF) called for the augmentation of seamless operation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to guarantee and promote increased intra-African trade. The intra-African trade is envisioned to increase by 50 per cent, providing the world with an additional income of 76 billion US dollars.
The Fourth Africa-Türkiye Economic and Business Forum (TABEF) called for the augmentation of seamless operation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to guarantee and promote increased intra-African trade. The intra-African trade is envisioned to increase by 50 per cent, providing the world with an additional income of 76 billion US dollars. The recently concluded fourth edition of TABEF was hosted by the Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Turkey, in coordination with the African Union and organised by DEİK, the forum also stressed the urgency to respond to the ongoing rising of global commodity prices and food insecurity as well as natural disasters which are affecting the poor and vulnerable people.
TABEF envisioned expanding the African market with the ultimate goal of creating value chains between Africa and Türkiye for the trading of products and services. Under the AfCFTA mechanism, a market of 1.3 billion people and a value of 3.4 trillion dollars is expected to be created. The forum noted that the African and Turkish private sectors have a shared interest in the successful and effective implementation of the AfCFTA.
Forum committed to strengthen bilateral relations in various areas. The areas include manufacturing and agro-processing, whereby investments in logistics, including cold chain logistics and modern storage facilities, labs, information and communication technologies have been highlighted as priority areas that will support the creation of regional value chains in manufacturing and agriculture in Africa. The Forum reaffirmed the need to deliberately invest in the exchange of best practices, skills, and knowledge necessary for developing joint production and export capacity. It called for the intensification of collaboration to improve and augment the existing networks of Digital Innovation Hubs in Africa to deal with digital capacity gaps that exist amongst African and Turkish businesses.
With its main theme “Addressing Challenges, Unlocking Opportunities: Building Stronger Türkiye-Africa Economic Partnerships” the forum also committed to supporting women and youth entrepreneurs, skills training and development, strengthening existing SME matchmaking mechanisms and supporting business development centers, business incubators, and technology hubs in collaboration with the private sector from both sides.
In terms of trade and investment, they called upon Turkish and African financial institutions to design financial instruments necessary to finance investments and overall economic development in Africa as well as joint ventures and partnerships between Turkish and African businesses.
Likewise, tourism was identified as a priority sector under the Türkiye-Africa Partnership framework for boosting economic and social development through the generation of employment and the development of touristic resources and called on the parties to work on improving connectivity, technology transfer and promotion of cultural exchanges.
Speaking at the event, DEIK President Nail Olpak emphasized the importance of increasing collaboration with African partners, especially in infrastructure projects related to transportation, energy and health care, within the framework of a win-win principle. He further mentioned that the forum’s discussions, panels, B2B and G2B meetings, as well as the agreements to be signed, would establish new bridges between Türkiye and Africa and pave the way toward reaching the goal of first $50 billion (TL 1.39 trillion) and then $75 billion in trade volume between the two regions. Transportation and telecommunication investments such as roads, railways, bridges, airports, ports, data centers, and GSM networks, and infrastructure projects such as energy production, transmission, and distribution, especially renewable energy, played an important role in increasing our economic performance. The importance of infrastructure investments in addressing global economic challenges and noted that green and digital transformations are currently at the forefront of the global agenda.
Read Also:
https://trendsnafrica.com/afcfta-to-hike-up-africas-export-standard-chartered-bank/
Turkish investments in Africa have reached $10 billion and Turkish investors provide employment opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people in Africa and make great contributions to the development of the countries they invest in. The trade volume between Türkiye and Africa amounted to $40.7 billion in 2022, up from $1.35 billion in 2003. The figure is projected to hit $50 billion by the end of this year.
