Leaders in Africa has successfully the continental free-trade zone under African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) which would help unite 1.3 billion people, pave way for a $3.4 trillion economic bloc and bring in a new era of development in the continent.

The result of a long four years of trade discussions, the agreement to form a 55-nation trade bloc was reached. It is envisioned that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will help unlock Africa’s full economic potential and boost intra-regional trade while at the same time strengthen the supply chains and promote knowledge sharing in the continent.

Africa's intra-regional trade accounted for just 17% of exports in 2017 versus 59% in Asia and 69% in Europe, and experts believe that Africa has missed out on the economic opportunities that other trade agreements/blocs and treaties have experienced in recent decades. To change this, the African countries have taken a resolution to commit to eliminating tariffs on most goods, which according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates, will positively impact trade in the region by as much as 25% in the medium term.

The IMF described the free-trade zone as a potential “economic game-changer” of the kind that has boosted growth in Europe and North America. Although Africa already has an alphabet soup of competing and overlapping trade zones - ECOWAS in the west, EAC in the east, SADC in the south and COMESA in the east and south, only the EAC, driven mainly by Kenya, has made significant progress toward a common market in goods and services.

While these regional economic communities (REC) will continue to trade among themselves as they do now, the role of AfCFTA is to liberalize trade among those member states that are not currently in the same REC.

The success of the AfCFTA will be the real test to achieve the economic growth that aims to dream of welfare and quality of life into a reality.