On 7 July 2019 in Niamey, the capital of Niger, 54 out of 55 African states ratified the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement. The objective is the progressive elimination of customs duties between the signatory countries, and the facilitation of the free movement of goods and, to a limited extent, services within the continent.

There are several advantages to the free trade area:

• The agricultural and industrial sectors are expected to be the two areas that will benefit most from the agreement, leading to an increase in real wages and consequently an increase in exports.
• According to forecasts by the African Development Bank and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the introduction of the free trade area would result in a 2.8% increase in trade between Africa and the rest of the world compared to the forecasts made for 2022 in the absence of the agreement. Furthermore, the share of intra-African trade would rise from 10.2% to 15.5%.
• Finally, a further advantage would be the streamlining of customs procedures, thanks to the application of lower customs duties and simplified bureaucratic processes.

Despite the various positive aspects of the agreement, there are some obstacles to the full realisation of the project.

• The agreement aims to incentivise intra-African trade, an objective that is difficult to achieve due to the greater convenience of trading with the European Union and the United States.
• A second problem lies in the intrinsic characteristics of the African market, particularly its lack of internal differentiation. Indeed, African states prefer to import from abroad because they struggle to find the required products in neighbouring states. The structure of the African economy and its homogeneity lead to difficulty in creating global value chains within it.
• A third obstacle is linked to the nature of the agreement, namely that it is a free trade agreement, which cannot exclude the movement of people, which is currently particularly limited between African states.
• Finally, a last point concerns the non-existence of barriers to entry for the agreement. Any African state can take part in the project without an analysis of its economic, social and political conditions to ensure a certain level of economic maturity.

The free trade agreement is certainly an ambitious project for the African continent given its economic, political and social conditions, but it is undoubtedly a step forward for the desired political and economic integration of Africa.