Mekdes talked about her husband

Mekdes talked about her husband. I believe this question should be asked to the government people who are in charge of these things. Between the time we signed the contract in 2018 and when we actually started working in 2021, there was the COVID-19 pandemic.

From 2021 until now, there hasn't been much important trading happening under the AfCFTA. About three or four months ago, the Secretariat chose eight countries to test trading. When it comes to countries not benefiting, we are not yet at a point where problems with customs have been brought up. We need to make changes to customs procedures in order to support businesses participating in AfCFTA. Only a few countries, about three or four, have achieved this.

The continent itself has a lot of economic activities happening. We mostly sell similar products. The main goal is not to compete with each other for a limited number of customers. Instead, the focus should be on creating and manufacturing products. 

For Ethiopia, we bring in a lot of fuel from other countries. We might need more food, and Africa has the resources to help. But instead of bringing African food from other countries, we should make it ourselves here and try to make it more valuable to sell to nearby countries and others far away.

Some countries like Algeria, Egypt, and South Africa have good pharmaceutical industries that make medicine. These are the places where we can get some important things that we have been buying from other countries for a long time.