Abstract
Despite the existence of many regional economic communities (RECs) in Africa, intra-regional trade remains dismally low compared to other RECs in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Hence, the need for a paradigm shifts to the Tripartite Free Trade Area Agreement (TFTA) to enhance and reinvigorate the African integration agenda. Consequently, this study explores the benefits and obstacles that can promote or hinder the established TFTA in Africa. The three RECs will need to focus their efforts on making the TFTA effective by covering key areas of trade in goods and services, investment, competition policy, technical barriers to trade, electronic commerce, customs cooperation, rules of origin, intellectual property and dispute settlement.
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Notes
- 1.
Intra-regional trade still continues to be poor and the productive capacities of most of the economics below average.
- 2.
While parts of northern Kenya were experiencing major food shortages in January 2011, farmers in the Rift Valley had food surpluses and were imploring the government to buy their excess crops before they went to waste. Businesses must be able to exploit.
- 3.
This is similar to the size of Russia and more than four times the size of the European Union.
- 4.
At the time of the TFTA launch, not all Tripartite countries had finalized their tariff offers.
- 5.
Such a scenario is a welcome development for Zimbabwe as the local industry is still undergoing resuscitation and the country is still to decide on which FTA to join.
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Babatunde, M.A., Odularu, G. (2017). Understanding Bilateral Trade Flows and Negotiating South-South RTAs: Lessons and Policy Directions for the Tripartite Free Trade Area Agreement (TFTA). In: Odularu, G., Adekunle, B. (eds) Negotiating South-South Regional Trade Agreements. Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45569-3_8
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