The former managing director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mr. Richard Aisuebeogun, has said that the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) is positioned to aid the growth of airlines on the continent, boost trade and tourism,
Aisuebeogun stated this ahead of the fourth edition of the National Tourism Transportation Summit scheduled for November 15-16 in Abuja.
He also said the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) initiative is another giant step to boost trade and tourism in Africa.
“There is virtually no part of Europe that you cannot fly into from one particular spot because you have airlines crisscrossing the entire continent of Europe. We know that is not the case in Africa. I don’t want to go deep into that. We have talked about it for over 30 years. The challenge of flying across Africa is a major challenge. If we find it as a major challenge to fly across Africa or within Africa via intra-Africa transport system, then, you can imagine how it is going to limit the economic development of the region.
“We need to have citizens travel cards that enable us to go to South Africa, Banjul, Nairobi, Cairo without any limitations for legitimate reasons to do business that will engender economic growth of Africa and its citizens, business that will create wealth, business that will reduce poverty, business that will reduce unemployment and that is what Africa Continental Free Trade would do and I keep saying it that this can only be successful when we have SAATM to complement,” he said.
For his part, former managing director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Mr. Nnamdi Udoh, noted that Africa with 1.3 billion potential customers makes the continent much more attractive to investment both from within and outside the continent’.
According to him, with Nigeria’s rich tourism environment is enough to attract the country billions of US dollars.
“The African Union’s recent actions of putting into place an ACFTA and SAATM are giant steps towards recognizing the over 1.3 billion inhabitants in the continent as one people, one market, one geographical space, and one nation, provided Africans see and reason into this together,” he added.
