Shettima Advocates For Integration Of Intra-African Trade Framework

Vice President Kashim Shettima has said that Africa’s future economic success depends on its ability to integrate the informal sector into the formal intra-African trade framework.

Shettima stated this while declaring open the 4th African Union Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Forum in Abuja.

While he said the framework will be achieved particularly through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), he warned that if Africa failed to harness the potential in the informal sector for small businesses to grow, the continent would keep going round the same cycle of despair.

The vice president, in a statement published on his official X handle, noted that the promise of a better future for Africa does not depend on the skyscrapers being constructed in capitals of nations or the transactions in stock exchanges, but lies in the reality that the potential of the informal sector, which accounts for nearly 90 percent of the continent’s workforce, must be harnessed.

He demanded the integration of the informal economy into formal intra-African trade, noting that this was why small businesses have remained at the heart of policy formulation in Nigeria.