Cape Town - South African Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies is in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this week to attend the Africa Trade Week 2016.
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said in a statement on Sunday evening that the Africa Trade Week 2016 was a new Pan-African platform for advancing intra-African trade dialogue.
Its main objective was to provide a comprehensive, integrated and inclusive platform for policy dialogue between various trade-related constituencies.
Davies is due to participate in three panel sessions relating to the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) and the continental integration agenda as espoused in the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
He will also attend the African Union’s ministers of trade meeting, where ministers are scheduled to consider the progress of the CFTA negotiations, which were launched by AU heads of states during the AU assembly in Johannesburg in June 2015.
The CFTA aims to boost intra-Africa trade and to build an integrated Africa of one billion people and GDP of approximately $2.6 trillion.
The DTI statement added that Davies would also engage on key international trade issues such as the World Trade Organisation, African Growth Opportunity Act, Economic Partnership Agreement and the implications of Brexit, as well as the international investment landscape.
Davies is due to meet his counterparts from Kenya, Egypt and Nigeria on the sidelines of the meeting to discuss enhanced co-operation as well as economic integration in Africa.
AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY