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Cross border infrastructure plan to stimulate free trade zone: African Union Free Space project, including three African airlines, will be achieved in 2022, says Elalim
The African Union is looking to the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) to solve transportation problems and infrastructure issues, according to Nadir Fath Elalim from the African Union's senior political office. Elalim told Daily News Egypt that one of the African Union's projects is called "Free Space", which includes three African airlines connecting the continent and will be achieved in 2022. "We are trying to address these issues together, and we're going to reform other kinds of transportation, infrastructure and moving of goods," Elalim added. "By implementing these kinds of projects, we show we have the plan. We have already outlined the Alexandria-Cape Town Road and the road from Alexandria to Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti." In addition to this, a railway has been planned between Zambia and Angola , and one from Dakar to Djibouti as well, Elalim said, highlighting that the infrastructure programme is on the agenda . "It is not true that we don't have transportation, but we don't have a proper infrastructure to enable exports to move to other countries," he confirmed. The African Union has been working on Agenda 2063 since 2013, outlining where Africa will be in the next 50 years. The agenda is broken down into 10-year plans, with the first 10-year plan, the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA), to be launched in 2017. African countries are working in harmony with trade blocs, including ECCAS and ECOWAS, alongside COMESA, SADAK and the East African Community (EAC). Elalim added that all member states of the African Union signed the agenda on achieving CFTA, which needs to be working together free movements inside Africa. The CFTA's main goal is to preserve the capital of African countries, improve the GDP, solve issues of unemployment, fight poverty, and eliminate the conflicts in the continent due to economic reasons. The African Union is working on these all issues, as it the mother of these blocs as all of the countries are member in the African Union as blocs or individual or sovereign states. "We have available political will to launch the CFTA, but there are other difficulties in the formalities in the policies to harmonise these policies of the member states, including regarding taxation, tariffs and customs. We need to be harmonised regarding this, because of the differences between these countries," he concluded. "There are a lot of challenges in establishing this free trade area, but the challenges are not difficult because the political will among African leaders is there."
