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Local companies should take the delay in the implementation of an Africa-wide free-trade agreement to come-up with products that will compete across the continent, Zimtrade chief executive officer Allan Majuru has said.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA), which was supposed to come into effect on the 1st of July, is no longer proceeding as planned due to disruptions caused by the coronavirus outbreak, according to the zone’s secretary-general Wamkele Mene.

The ACFTA trade pact could cover a market of 1,2 billion people with a combined gross domestic product of $2,5 trillion, making it the world’s largest free-trade zone. Legally, the agreement is already in force, but in order to have made the July deadline for the start of trade in goods and services under the new tariff rules, several details needed to be ironed out as part of phase one of the process.

“It is obviously not possible to commence trade as we had intended on July 1 under the current circumstances,”  said Mene. — Business Reporter.