African heads of state have prioritised tackling infrastructure bottlenecks to enable intra-Africa investment to happen in a bid to boost the continent’s growth.

President Jacob Zuma says this commitment was made at the African Union Summit that took place in Ethiopia at the beginning of February.

Zuma says, “While intra-African investment has been growing since 2007, at more than 32%, a lack of access to trade-enabling infrastructure on the continent remained a fundamental challenge.”

“We discussed this matter at length again at the African Union summit in Ethiopia this past weekend. We recommitted ourselves as African heads of state to continue building cross-border infrastructure, to unlock growth and development in our continent.

“In addition to a focus on trade-enabling infrastructure, we are intensifying our continental integration efforts through the negotiation of the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement.

“We have made considerable progress in the negotiations, which aim to integrate 26 countries of Eastern and Southern Africa. This involves a population of nearly 600 million people and a combined GDP of US $1 trillion.”

 

(Source: SAnews.gov.za)