PROMOTION OF INTRA-AFRICAN TRADE: HELD THIS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2025 OF THE 4TH RETREAT OF TRADE MINISTERS OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENTAL FREE TRADE AREA-ZLECAF IN NEW CAIRO ON THE SIDE OF THE 17TH MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS OF THE ZLECAF
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The Democratic Republic of Congo, through its Minister of Foreign Trade, Julien Paluku Kahongya, took an active part this Monday, September 15, 2025 in New Cairo, Egypt, in the 4th retreat of Trade Ministers of the African Continental Free Trade Area-ZLECAF,
co-chaired by the Secretary General of the ZLECAF, Wamkene Mene and the Egyptian Minister of Trade and Investment, Hassan Al-Kathib, on the sidelines of the 17th meeting of the Council of Ministers of the ZLECAF which opens this Tuesday, September 16, 2025 in the new capital of Egypt.
Meeting focused on several points including the role of digital payments in facilitating intra-African trade, Africa in a changing geopolitical context,
Africa's responses to the Trump Administration's measures to increase customs duties, the update on the rules of origin particularly in the automobile sector, the need for customs administrations to issue certificates of origin and on trade in goods and services, industrialization and economic diversification as a sustainable response to exogenous shocks but also on the future of AGOA, an American law which allows the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa to export their products to the United States of America without payment of customs duties, and this, in the face of the evolution of the foreign policy of the United States of America and the imperative question of diversifying African markets towards new horizons.
Let us recall the 16th meeting of the ZLECAF Council of Trade Ministers was held on April 15 in Kinshasa and at the end of which African countries through their Trade Ministers committed to taking a common position in the face of the trade war triggered by the Trump Administration
