Connecting African Trade for Africa's sufficiency and posterity.
Facts of Africa
Facts about Demographics in Africa:
- Africa is the world’s largest growing continent in terms of population.
- As of 2018, annual population growth world-wide stood at apx. 1.1%; annual population growth in Sub-Saharan Africa stood at apx. 2.7% – more than twice then world-wide average.
- 50% of the population in Africa is under 20, and 60% is under 25 years old – making Africa the world’s youngest continent.
- 1.3 billion people already live in Africa – more people than in Europe and North America combined.
- 40% of Africans now live in urban areas.
The economy of Africa consists of the trade, industry, agriculture, and human resources of the continent. As of 2019, approximately 1.3 billion people were living in 54 places in Africa. Africa is a resource-rich continent. Recent growth has been due to growth in sales in commodities, services, and manufacturing.
With the birth of the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System – PAPSS which enables the efficient flow of money securely across African borders, minimising risk and contributing to financial integration across the regions and the rapidly advancing information communications technologies (ICTs) which helps in addressing social and economic problems caused by the fast growth of urban youth populations in Africa. ICTs offer opportunities to young people for learning, skill development and employment.
At a time when cross-border trading is high on the agenda with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement now a reality, PAPSS is primed to facilitate the expected increased volumes in cross-border payments in currencies within Africa. For example, a business or individual in South Africa can seamlessly pay into the bank account of a vendor, business, and partner in Nigeria with the South African rand (R) and the Nigerian counterpart receives the payment in Naira (N) in their bank account.
Increased internet and mobile phone penetration create economic opportunity for Africans and for those wishing to engage economically with the continent by giving business owners the tools needed to research the market, find investors, and reach customers, while allowing consumers to find and pay for products and services online. In addition, the increase in ICT adoption has spurred growth in the Fintech sector. Fintech services can allow Africa’s currently unbanked population to participate in economic activity beyond the confines of their communities despite the shortcomings of infrastructure in other areas.
Self-sufficiency is our reasonable goal for Africa, as an organization, we are contributing to encourage and enable Africa to produce and consume its own products, eradicating the “fundamentally exploitativeness of Africa” which will sustainably position Africa to compete with the rest of the world.
One of the major resource to facilitate African’s self-suffiency is trade, with the above-stated in mind, it is very pertinent for the emergent of a virtual hybrid African Trade Exhibition to showcase Africa’s:
