Awareness-Raising workshop on African Continental Free-Trade Area

The works of an awareness-raising workshop on the African continental free-trade area (AfCFTA), organized by the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Tourism, started on Wednesday in Nouakchott. The one-day meeting aims to make a diagnostic of all challenges, follow the opportunities open to Mauritania, and identify the means that allow the private sector and all other key actors to guarantee taking maximum advantage of the new situation. In this context, the Secretary-general of the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Tourism, Mr. Ahmed Salem Ould Bouhedda, said that the AfCFTA agreement will enter into force on 01 January 2021. He added that Mauritania was one of the first countries to ratify the agreement creating AfCFTA and that it is now impatiently waiting for all the countries of the continent to join to create a market of 1.2 billion consumers, one of the largest free-trade markets in the history. The opening of the workshop took place in the presence of the secretaries-general of the ministries of Justice and Economic Affairs.