The African Goose Summit 2020 has urged entrepreneurs and the business community to take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) to scale up performance when fully operational.

According to the CEO of Spektra Global, organiser’s of the summit, William Evans Halm, the overall agenda of the policy must be explored to reflect the total meaning of the agreement.

Speaking to Class91.3FM after the African Goose Summit 2020 in Accra, Mr Halm urged small and micro enterprises to take advantage of AfCFTA.

“You must know what's contained in the agreement, partner others toward the implementation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement", he said.

Contributing to the debate, Country Senior Partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Vish Ashiagbor, urged the government to focus on cross-border taxation and its potential implementation challenges as well as a stable legal environment with well-defined rules that offer legal certainty and expected benefits of the AfCFTA.

According to him, Africa's trade with the rest of the world shows that total exports are averaged to be US$760 billion within the period of 2015 to 2017.

African exports to destinations outside Africa ranged from 80% to 90% for the period of 2000 to 2017.

Intra-Africa exports were only 16.6% of total exports in 2017, compared with 68.1% in Europe, 59.4% in Asia, 55% in America and 7% in Oceania.

“I think everybody participating in the Africa Continental Free Trade Area needs to look at the harmonisation of regulations, standards and legal framework; the level of consistency and certainty as well as operational challenges to maximise profits”, he explained.

African Goose Summit 2020 was organised by Spektra Global, Vanguard Assurance and other partners. It was intended to devise ways to derive prospects from the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.

It is anchored on the agenda to speed up access to a single-market and movement of goods and services within 55 countries on the African continent.

The agreement, which is expected to be fully implemented in July 2020, will scale up trading activities and business transactions in Africa.

The priority service sectors of the agreement include transport, communication, tourism, financial and business services.