A South African government official called on African countries to increase trade, particularly food trade, between each other.
He said latest research on the agro-processing sector indicates that Africa is estimated to spend up to 50 billion U.S. dollars on food imports this year.
“We can no longer afford to lose this much-needed income and opportunity to increase trade amongst us and to build stronger developed trading partners,” he said.
He said that research by the African Export-Import Bank shows that intra-Africa trade has great growth potential if the continent matches supply and demand by replacing global resources with resources in the continent.