The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group said that the much-anticipated African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) plan of economic integration would not deliver transformation until it is anchored on sound industrialisation policies.

President of the Group, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, at the ongoing Annual General Meeting of the Bank in Nairobi, said mere trading on the free zone would only make the signatories poorer.

Adesina, however, said that the industrialisation policies must be complemented with improved connectivity among the African countries. It will be recalled that the AfCFTA is a cardinal finger of the Agenda 2063 of the African Union, targeted at the full integration of African countries for sustainable development.

Adesina, addressing the media, said that the continent has a huge transformation trajectory given its diverse potential that includes a young population of 477 million people under 35 years, renewable and green energy resources, a wealth of world metal and abundant agriculture capital that is tangential to the world’s ability to feed 9.9 billion soon.

He added that the transformation of that latent potential would, however, depend on the African free trade area and sound industrial policies on the corridors.

He said the policy would allow African countries to have industrial manufacturing and specialise in value chains in their areas of comparative advantage, for national, regional, and global markets.

His words: “Simply trading is not enough, and we’ve been trading forever. But if I am trading with you maize and you are trading with me sorghum in a free trade zone, both of us are going to be competitively and efficiently poor because we are not moving into manufacturing.

“I am saying that because industrial manufacturing must be at the core of that African economic transformation and that must be because it is an outbound and outward-looking industrial manufacturing stance that allows Africa to expand its export globally,” he said.

Adesina noted that the industrialisation agenda informed the Bank’s drive of the strategic infrastructure platforms and attendant investments. That has been demonstrated through the investment in the Lobito corridor linking Angola with Zambia and DR Congo, the Lagos-Abidjan Highway built at $15.6 billion, and the central corridor for railway linking Tanzania to Burundi and DR Congo.

“We need infrastructure and more importantly, we need connectivity. That is the only way we need to move. You all heard what my friend Aliko Dangote said recently he needed about 35 visas to move around Africa. That doesn’t make any sense.

“There is no way you can trade, be competitive and have a regionally integrated market if people cannot move. So, there must be a soft side to the economic transformation we are talking about. The ease of labour mobility and our skills moving from one country to the other are very important,” he said.