He said member states, as well as businesses, would not reap the full benefit of the Agreement if they circumvented the laid down trade protocols and engaged in illegalities.
He gave the caution in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Accra.
The AfCFTA is the single largest free trade in Africa with an estimated market size of 1.3 billion people.
Dr Osei-Assibey described the Agreement as a ‘game-changer’, which could help businesses scale up across the region and produce at much greater scale with more efficiency and productivity.
However, he warned that many regional economic blocs in Africa had failed to achieve their objectives due to failure of member states to adhere to the trade legalisation schemes they agreed upon.
He noted that, for instance, in the case of the West African sub-regional economic bloc; ECOWAS, many member states continued to impose huge charges on products, which were guaranteed tax-free or tax exemptions under the trade legalisation scheme. Read More.
