Good morning Colleagues,

I am glad to be with this group of distinguished thought leaders on matters of economic integration.

I warmly welcome our colleagues from outside Africa. You are among friends, feel at home.

Dear colleagues,

The product that you are processing will be a vital guide to policy and decision making on African economic integration.

This is because we are harnessing economic integration as a key lever of inclusive and sustainable development, especially with regard to the Continental Free Trade Area project.

I have skimmed through the draft.

It stimulates thinking,

It is also a strong foundation for your work in the next two days.

It gives pointers on where we need to probe further to make the most of economic integration in our development efforts as a continent.

It also gives lessons of experience on regional economic integration from Africa and elsewhere.

These lessons of experience offer new opportunities that we can use to galvanize African economic integration.

Dear colleagues,

I welcome the focus on the state of play on the Continental Free Trade Area project.

The focus is timely.

It will assist policy makers, advisors and negotiators as we approach the deadline of December, 2017 to have a document ready for signing by January, 2018.

Dear colleagues,

As you finalize your work, which already has a strong foundation as I stated earlier, I would like to leave you with some thoughts:

1.0 Aim to have a complete product ready for circulation to African Trade Ministers when they meet in Niamey, Niger in June this year.

2.0 Address the issue of the 0.2% to its application from the USA and WTO. What can we learn from the Kenyan model which is said to be WTO compatible?

3.0 I welcome your addressing the issue of Economic Partnership Agreements. What specific policy recommendations can be made to the AU Trade Ministers on this issue in the context of the CFTA?

4.0 The chapters on benefit sharing and typology of countries under the CFTA are interesting and insightful. However, I would suggest that you go into greater details on the question of Least Developed Countries. How do we position them to contribute to building a stronger African economy and with that, stronger economic integration?

If more research is required on LDCs and their contribution to continental integration, may be that could be the theme for next year.

The CFTA promises deeper integration, higher incomes and national output. That cannot be realized if Least Developed Countries do not rapidly graduate to middle income countries.

Furthermore, the African Union Agenda 2063 has a vision of having African middle income and developed countries by 2063. Realizing that vision goes through graduation of African Least Developed Countries to middle income status.

5.0 The draft puts the questions of reconfiguration of regional economic communities under the CFTA at the stage of the establishment of the African Customs Union in accordance with the Abuja Treaty commitments. Furthermore, the draft positions the establishing a CFTA secretariat as part of the African Union structures.

This is understandable. Policy positions already exist in these arrangements.

With regard to maintaining the status of regional economic communities, until establishment of the African Customs Union, are we able to calculate how much it costs Africa annually to run these institutions with overlapping mandates. How many members of Staff are in these regional economic communities? What are the opportunity costs in respect of the CFTA?

With respect to creating a CFTA secretariat as part of the African Union, are there no other alternatives that could be considered by Trade Ministers and Heads of State and Government? If we are to think outside the box, let us consider the CFTA as a child. For a child to be born, it must come out of the mother's womb. For the child to grow and mature, it must also come out of the parents’ house. Wouldn't this apply to the CFTA secretariat?

6.0 Africa is annually short of US$120 billion in trade finance. This will have an adverse impact on implementing the Action Plan on Boosting Intra-African Trade. Are there any proposals that you can come up in this ARIA report to resolve this grave problem?

7.0 Some researchers on African economic integration are not happy with the idea of a CFTA, believing the ambitions are unattainable. They have instead called for an Association of African Economies, modeled on the lines of ASEAN as an alternative. Could this issue be discussed in this ARIA report by way of a response to this proposal? As you conclude the Chapter on ASEAN, the question that comes up is: what can the CFTA learn from the ASEAN experience?

8.0 African products are not known in a number of our member states. It was in this connection that the idea of a pan African Trade Promotion Agency was mooted in the 1970s. What proposals can ARIA advance to revive this idea? Can ARIA also contribute to reviving the practice of holding All Africa Trade Fairs?

Dear colleagues,

Before I conclude, I am wondering why the current draft on ARIA 8 does not come out with trends on the economic growth rates of African countries. I am interested in this issue because the literature is clear that strong economic growth is a prerequisite for stronger economic integration.

Let me emphasize, the draft has a strong foundation. I am confident you will use it to come up with a good product to inform the policy process on African economic integration.

I wish you enjoyable and fruitful deliberations.

I look forward to reading the final report.

I thank you all for your kind attention.