How can foreign investors in Mauritius access the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)?
A gateway to the African continent, thanks to its strategic location, not to mention its favorable business climate, Mauritius has a lot to offer to foreign investors seeking new ventures in the region. The government is a signatory of many agreements aimed at facilitating integration into the huge African market. One such agreement is the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement. Let’s take a look at the world of possibilities this agreement has opened for foreign investors from around the globe. What is the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)? Officially launched on January 1, 2021, after many years of negotiations, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a landmark trade agreement among African Union (AU) member states. It is aimed at creating a single market for goods and services while facilitating the free movement of people, fostering industrialization, and promoting economic integration across the African continent. The considered one of the most significant developments in Africa’s economic integration efforts. Signed by 54 out of 55 AU member states as of September 2021 and ratified by 41 of them, the AfCFTA represents a significant step towards deeper economic integration in Africa. Through its various pillars, it is expected to drive sustainable economic growth, increase intra-African trade, and create new opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs across the continent. What are the key features of the AfCFTA? The AfCFTA provides for the establishment of a single market covering the African continent. One of its missions is to reduce trade barriers, harmonize trade rules and facilitate the movement of goods and services across African borders. As mentioned above, it also aims at facilitating the movement of people across the region through tourism and investment, including visa facilitation policies and the streamlining of visa procedures. By encouraging value addition, promoting intra-African value chains, and supporting the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the AfCFTA also has the responsibility of promoting industrial development and economic diversification while boosting manufacturing, promoting innovation and creating employment opportunities. Other key features of the AfCFTA include the elimination of tariff barriers, promoting competitiveness across the region, and enhancing market access for African businesses. How can foreign investors in Mauritius benefit from the AfCFTA agreement? Located in the heart of the Indian Ocean, Mauritius serves as a strategic hub for trade and commerce between Africa, Asia, and other regions. By establishing their operations in Mauritius, foreign investors can leverage the country’s connectivity and logistics infrastructure to reach the 1.3 billion consumers in the AfCFTA market. With its well-established financial and investment infrastructure, Mauritius is, therefore, the ideal location for investors looking to establish regional headquarters or production facilities to access the broader AfCFTA market. Renowned for its investor-friendly environment, political stability, robust legal framework, and transparent regulations designed to protect investments of all kinds, Mauritius offers a range of incentives for foreign investors. These include tax benefits, repatriation of profits, and intellectual property protection, to name but a few. In fact, the island state ranks 13 globally for its ease of doing business in Mauritius, which is a good sign for foreign investors seeking new opportunities in the African region. Since the AfCFTA aims to foster the growth of local production networks and boost industrialization across Africa, foreign investors can take advantage of this opportunity by setting up manufacturing plants in Mauritius. They will thus be able to capitalize on the country’s well-developed infrastructure, skilled labor force, and logistical benefits. By actively engaging in regional value chains, foreign investors can improve the efficiency of their supply chains, access a variety of inputs from various African nations, and utilize Mauritius’ expertise to manufacture and export goods within the AfCFTA market. Mauritius also stands out as a regional hub for operations in Africa thanks to its robust financial services industry that includes banking, insurance, and asset management. By establishing regional headquarters or operational centers in Mauritius, foreign investors can leverage the country’s financial expertise, gain market insights, and efficiently manage their operations across the AfCFTA market. This also means that foreign investors in Mauritius will be able to engage with other companies, participate in industry events, and explore potential joint ventures within the AfCFTA market. As we have seen, the AfCFTA offers Mauritius a wide range of benefits, including market expansion, increased trade and investment flows, industrial development, economic diversification, and regional collaboration. As a foreign investor, you can also take advantage of these benefits through strategic planning with proper guidance, and Blue Azurite is here to assist you. Our team of experts will provide you with all the relevant and up-to-date information and guidance to help you succeed in your investment project. Get in touch with us now to get started.
Africa fintech festival 2021 was held in Mauritius
In 2021, Mauritius had the immense honour of hosting the Africa fintech festival. It won the right to do so in 2019 and aiming to become a fintech hub of excellence on the African continent, the Mauritius Africa Fintech Hub (MAFH) has been working hard so that it becomes a success, which it was. What exactly is this event about? What is the Africa fintech festival? The Africa fintech festival was first launched in 2018 by the Africa Fintech Network (AFN). AFN is a platform that brings together African experts of this particular industry. Fintech leaders, organisations and stakeholders come together to participate in an exchange of information and ideas so that innovative technologies can be created in and deployed across and beyond the continent. The organisation hopes that the ability to have open dialogue, to build rewarding synergies and to create new opportunities and new solutions for the fintech world will catalyse Africa’s digital economy. In 2018, AFN launched the Africa fintech festival. In fact, while the idea for AFN was initiated in January of the same year, it was during the festival that that the network was formally inaugurated. Its goal was to address the future of the financial and technology sector in the African context and to enable the creation of home-grown solutions to the challenges faced by the African continent. It was themed “Beyond the hype of Fintech and its promises” and was a week-long event. On the first two days, main conferences were held and the remaining days were dedicated to various side events. Following the success of the festival, a second edition was held in Uganda in 2019 to discuss the role of fintech in Africa’s digital economy and Mauritius was chosen as the next destination, with the hope of facilitating open collaboration for the purposes of driving innovation and financial inclusion. The main host was Mauritius Africa Fintech Hub (MAFH). Mauritius Africa Fintech Hub facilitates development in the country The fintech and technology sector in Mauritius is expanding at a rapid rate and this poses huge opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs. The MAFH is here to make things easier for investors. It is a network of experts and acts as a facilitator enabling businesses to part of the fintech community and to gain international exposure and business development opportunities. Specifically aimed at entrepreneurs, investors, FPS and corporates, it has four main categories of services. These are: Innovation & Incubation Regulation & Policy Strategy Capacity and Skills Building Deal Flow and Investment The 2021 Africa fintech festival hosted by MAFH Ahead of the festival, organisers had been receiving complaints from participants around the globe about not being able to attend it in person. This is unsurprisingly due to the Covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions. Considering that the majority of participants, partners and stakeholders were unable to travel and the festival’s purpose is to enable collaboration, networking and opportunities in the FinTech space in Africa by focussing on equal opportunity, it was decided to change the usual schema of things. Both the Africa Fintech Network board and Mauritius African Fintech Hub have decided to change the format of the festival from hybrid to a purely virtual one. Thus, the festival was more inclusive and allowed everyone to participate in discussions. The theme of the third edition was “FinTech, Sustainability and Innovation – The power trio to fast-forward Africa’s growth” and was a 3-day hybrid conference that took place from the 13th-15th October. It should be noted that it was preceded by a 1-day fully virtual and free event that took place on the 16th of June and addressed several topics such as digital ID, blockchain and crypto assets, digital financial literacy and others. The October festival had more than 1400 attendees from over 90 countries who had the opportunity to listen to and engage with +100 key leader speakers across pan-Africa from private & public enterprises. Some of the key topics addressed were: Designing and Scaling innovation organisations In Africa Building a blockchain technology ecosystem in Africa Fintechs to the rescue –building new roads to compliance Drivers of digital transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa Investing in Africa: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly Regulating for Innovation The success of the festival and a post-AFF event Following the success of the festival, it was announced that there will be a post-AFF edition to be held in Mauritius soon. This will be a formal flag relay for Mauritius and it will precede the main 2022 AFF edition to be hosted by the Egypt FinTech Association (EFA). Speaking about the decision to hold the festival in Egypt, Noha Shaker, Secretary General of the EFA and elected Vice President of the AFN said, “It is an honour and a pleasure to be hosting all the Africa FinTech ecosystem in Egypt next year. We have a lot of exciting activities and initiatives to announce, none of which have been carried out in any part of Africa like the Green Finance Hub that we are going to be launching in Egypt in a few months’ time with key players around the ecosystem from Africa”.
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