iAfrica

Be Smart About South Africa

Women Should Not be Left Behind in the AfCFTA

Despite the fact that women run most small and medium scale businesses in Africa, they have a $42 billion gap in funding versus men. Female owned businesses tend to be underfunded, but over mentored with the ring-fencing of certain small pools of funding to them, ironically sometimes putting them at a disadvantage. Since trading officially started in January last year, the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has notched some milestones on the march to meaningful commercial activity. There is now a rules of origin manual (pdf) detailing criteria for exempting goods from excise duty, as well as an electronic tariff portal. A guided trade initiative was started in July as a pilot trade scheme involving Ghana, Kenya, Cameroon, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Egypt. PAPSS, Africa’s central payments switch for settling transactions in local currencies, is operational.

SOURCE: QUARTZ AFRICA

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