Delays in submitting the offer of goods and services commitment to the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) is weakening Ethiopia’s bargaining power, as other member countries are about to start trading after finishing up negotiations.
In their annual performance evaluation meeting the Council of Ministers held at Awash last week, the Minister for Planning and Development, Fitsum Assefa (PhD) revealed that Ethiopia’s engagement in the AfCFTA has been delayed since the government failed to submit offers for the goods and service commitments, even though the offer documents have been finalized for a long time.
Although the country is one of the first to come on board for the ratification, it is the last as no negotiations are yet to be made, while other countries have been engaging in negotiations for the last nine months, Fitsum stated in the same meeting led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD).
“Ethiopia’s role during all this period was only limited to observation, as no offer was submitted from our end,” said Fitsum.
Almost all countries have submitted their offers to the secretariat and were negotiating on these offers. About 34 countries submitted their goods offer and about 47 countries submitting their service commitments.
With Ethiopia lagging behind, the secretariat of the AfCFTA will hold its Ministerial summit next month and most countries are ready to begin trading.
“For sure our bargaining power won’t be the same on the next negotiations, as we will start from scratch on what they had already passed through,” Fitsum said adding “Even if we decide to delay submitting our goods offers due to the high income derived from customs duty, we should at least submit our complete service offers and participate in the negotiations.”
Officials had approved a list of goods offer to submit to the secretariat with seven percent of the items having a tariff cut in 13 years and three percent of the goods up for negotiations. The remaining 90 percent (6,328 products) were slated to go through the tariff removal gradually.
Items with high customs revenues and services including finance and retail markets were not prepared for the negotiations, as decided by the then steering committee led by Mamo Mihretu, chief executive officer (CEO) of the now Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH) and chief policy advisor and trade negotiator to the Prime Minister.
The same committee delayed the submission of offers.
Confirming the delay to submit the goods offers and service commitments to the secretariat, Tages Mulugeta, director of Regional Integration Trade Relation and Negotiation at the Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration, echoed that Ethiopia did not have a bigger role other than participate in other countries’ negotiation procedures.
“We have finished identifying each goods and services, so once the government decides and we submit it to the Council of Ministers at the secretariat will further review it,” Tages said.
Even though a few Western African countries had already begun trading last year January, the goods and services offered by several countries are now annexed and trading will begin massively after the summit, Fitsum disclosed.
“It is important to embark in membership in international trade organizations to broaden the reachability in the international market and improve sustainability of the import/export trade,” Fitsum said during the ministers’ meeting
