FOR South African businesses, the new African free trade deal kicked in at the start of 2021. This may have big implications for them: it could bring new competitors to the local market, while also affording great opportunities in other markets on a continent which houses more than 1 billion people.
Apart from Eritrea, all 54 of the other African countries have now agreed to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which means that they will over time scrap import tariffs on 90% of imports from other African member states within five years.
They still need to agree on some important outstanding issues, including “rules of origin” – the criteria to define where a product was made. Products must be mainly produced in Africa.
Rules of origin for agricultural products are relatively easy to define: it is simply where the product grew or animal was raised.
But things get
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