3rd Edition of the Intra-African Trade Fair: 35000 people and more hoped to partake in the new Parc d’Exposition d’Abidjan in a bid to enable Côte d’Ivoire’s Agrarian Prospect on November 21st and 27th 2023 respectively

By Abdul Rahman Bangura–

NEW AFRICA DAILY NEWS (NADN) Freetown, Sierra Leone- The next biggest economy in the West African region after Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire invoices for 60% of the agriculture exports in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) and 33% in ECOWAS. This lends credence to her, for it to become one of the most desirable nations for agrarian investors from Africa to invest in.

The world’s biggest producer of cocoa and cashew nut, 4th producer of cotton in Africa, 7th producer of natural rubber in the world (1st producer in Africa), 5th produce of palm oil in the world (2nd in Africa) – around 75% of Côte d’Ivoire’s landmass is arable and fertile land, of which around 42% is cultivated.

Nonetheless, most of Côte d’Ivoire’s farming produce is exported abroad irrespective of the fact that there are close African nations import same goods. For instance, Kenya, Nigeria, Angola and South Africa are all big importers of palm oil, but most of it enters from Indonesia and Malaysia.

Côte d’Ivoire thus delivers an enormous span of investment chances for African industries. As it stands, it is understood that most of the Ivory Coast’s affluent and motley farming sector barely benefits European nations. In 2020, Belgium, Vietnam, Switzerland, the US and the Netherlands all imported more goods from Côte d’Ivoire than Mali, which is the biggest importer of Ivorian products in Africa. Burkina Faso were the second and third largest African importers of Ivorian produce, but in tiniest quantities, which implies that there is a large ability to improve Ivorian exports to the West African sub region and beyond.

With-it reality, in 2020, 61.7% of Côte d’Ivoire’ exports were agricultural products while 44.8% of total exports were preordain for Europe pursued by 22.8% in Africa (55% to the UEMOA region).

The IATF indicates the commitment of African nations to undo this tendency and enhance Intra-African commerce. During the Abidjan roadshow in February, which declared openly the forthcoming IATF, Emily Mburu-Ndoria – Director of commercial services, investment, intellectual property rights and commerce at the Secretariat of the AfCFTA, let out that significant effort had been brought by the Secretariat to galvanize all African nations to stabilize the free trade zone.

“The agreement protocols have been created to facilitate commerce between African countries. In particular, we have created one agency charged with boosting investment.

The AfCFTA Secretariat uses specialized instruments which were created to encourage African countries to boost trade between each other and IATF 2023 will be an important opportunity to achieve exactly that”.

With more than $43 billion expected in business deals and the participation of governments, the private sector, buyers, sellers, and multilateral banks, the IATF is Africa’s flagship event to boost intra-African trade on the continent.

For New Africa Daily News Abdul Rahman Bangura Reports,  Africa Correspondent