The Fashionomics Africa initiative of the African Development Bank (AfDB), together with the African Union (AU), the AfroChampions initiative and other partners, launched the Pan-African Fashion initiative last month in Addis Ababa. It is a platform for stakeholder engagement, dialogue, strategy and policies on fashion within the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The initiative aims to remove trade barriers between African nations and expand annual intra-Africa trade by about $35 billion. Intra-African imports and exports currently account for just 15 per cent of all trade on the continent, according to an AfDB press release.The Fashionomics Africa initiative of the African Development Bank, together with the African Union, the AfroChampions initiative and other partners, launched the Pan-African Fashion initiative last month in Addis Ababa. It is a platform for stakeholder engagement, dialogue, strategy and policies on fashion within the African Continental Free Trade Area.#
It will offer all stakeholders the opportunity to inform African entrepreneurs about the expected benefits of AfCFTA.
Out of the 44 AfCFTA signatories, that include garment-manufacturing countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, South Africa and Tunisia, 19 have ratified the the agreement.
The value of the global fashion industry, in which 90 per cent of the businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), is around $2.4 trillion, with an annual growth of 5.5 per cent. Africa accounts for less than 5 per cent of this value, while Asia and the United States share 80 per cent of the market valued at $3 billion. (DS)
Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India