The disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has halted the implementation of the African Free Trade Agreement, forcing officials to postpone it. “It is obviously not possible to commence trade as we had intended on 1 July under the current circumstances,” Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), told Reuters. Although Mene did not say whether there was a new targeted implementation, he was confident the deal would still proceed. “The...

This year’s Intra-African Trade Fair, initially scheduled to take place in Rwanda in September, has been postponed to next year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, organisers said in a statement on Wednesday. The event, co-organized by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), the African Union (AU) and the Rwandan government, will be postponed to Sept. 6-12, 2021, in Kigali to ensure the safety of the host country and the participants, said the statement released by...