Jul 10, 2026 · 27 min · 10 segments
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) forms a single market of over 1.4…
Hennie HeymansGuest
Mahika RavishankarHostHow has that supported regional integration and connectivity across the continent?
I think the African Free Trade Agreement links one point three billion consumers or provides a mechanism to link that.
And it's, you know, across the territory, it's, it's about a three point four trillion U.S. dollar GDP or economy that, that you're talking about.
So what's the significance of that? I mean, there's, there's a couple of points to it.
Y-you know, so, so people can kind of prepare and plan across a single set of rules, whereas at the moment it's very fragmented.
Now, you know, often when I speak to people, they go, "Oh, Hennie, there's nothing happening with this thing." You know, sometimes we are just simply too impatient and often compare this to European Union.
It took the European Union fifty years to get together and kind of make this thing work.
Right now, you're gonna say to me, how long? I think it's about twelve or thirteen years, what-whatever the case may be.
And I'll talk a little bit about how I think world events are potentially accelerating that journey and, and I'm happy to talk about that a little bit later.
The other role that the Africa Free Trade Agreement is playing is it's enabling and fast-tracking infrastructure investment because you need infrastructure if you wanna trade and we know, we often talk about it, that infrastructure on this continent lacks.
But certainly, the Africa Free Trade Agreement will actually build that pressure from the bottom up.
That requirement for infrastructure will now be driven from, from the bottom up.
So yeah, I mean, so, so those are probably the three things I'd say in terms of the Africa Free Trade Agreement.
Maybe just a little bit in terms of why that I say that world events are accelerating it.
If you think about what's happening at the moment, you know, you've got the war that broke out, the Russia-Ukraine a while back now already and, and still, uh, you know, apparently no end in sight unfortunately.
How has that supported regional integration and connectivity across the continent?
I think the African Free Trade Agreement links one point three billion consumers or provides a mechanism to link that.
And it's, you know, across the territory, it's, it's about a three point four trillion U.S. dollar GDP or economy that, that you're talking about.
So what's the significance of that? I mean, there's, there's a couple of points to it.
Y-you know, so, so people can kind of prepare and plan across a single set of rules, whereas at the moment it's very fragmented.
Now, you know, often when I speak to people, they go, "Oh, Hennie, there's nothing happening with this thing." You know, sometimes we are just simply too impatient and often compare this to European Union.
It took the European Union fifty years to get together and kind of make this thing work.
Right now, you're gonna say to me, how long? I think it's about twelve or thirteen years, what-whatever the case may be.
And I'll talk a little bit about how I think world events are potentially accelerating that journey and, and I'm happy to talk about that a little bit later.
The other role that the Africa Free Trade Agreement is playing is it's enabling and fast-tracking infrastructure investment because you need infrastructure if you wanna trade and we know, we often talk about it, that infrastructure on this continent lacks.
But certainly, the Africa Free Trade Agreement will actually build that pressure from the bottom up.
That requirement for infrastructure will now be driven from, from the bottom up.
So yeah, I mean, so, so those are probably the three things I'd say in terms of the Africa Free Trade Agreement.
Maybe just a little bit in terms of why that I say that world events are accelerating it.
If you think about what's happening at the moment, you know, you've got the war that broke out, the Russia-Ukraine a while back now already and, and still, uh, you know, apparently no end in sight unfortunately.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
