The AfCFTA and African Trade—An Introduction to the Special Issue

DOI

10.2991/jat.k.211206.001How to use a DOI?

Keywords

AfCFTA; African trade; regional integration; intra-African trade; international economics

Abstract

The agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has been attracting a great deal of attention in academic and policy circles, as well as within the international development community. The growing interest in the AfCFTA partly reflects the fact that the African continent is bucking a global trend toward greater protectionism. But it also represents a break with the past on a continent where market fragmentation has emerged as a major constraint to growth and economic development. The AfCFTA offers the opportunity to accelerate the transformation of African economies to boost intra-African trade and enhance integration of the region into the global economy. This paper introduces the Special Issue on ‘The AfCFTA and African Trade’. It provides an overview of the existing literature, explores the implications of the landmark agreement for African trade and economic development, and highlights some of the potential challenges associated with its operationalization.

Copyright

© 2021 African Export-Import Bank. Publishing services by Atlantis Press International B.V.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hippolyte Fofack
AU  - Andrew Mold
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/12/15
TI  - The AfCFTA and African Trade—An Introduction to the Special Issue
JO  - Journal of African Trade
SP  - 1
EP  - 11
VL  - 8
IS  - 2 (Special Issue)
SN  - 2214-8523
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/jat.k.211206.001
DO  - 10.2991/jat.k.211206.001
ID  - Fofack2021
ER  -