Burkina Faso has been a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) since 1995. Agricultural exports into the country are subject to higher tariffs (14.6%) than non-agricultural exports (11.5 percent). Although Burkina Faso has not signed any plurilateral agreements under the WTO’s auspices, its membership in the organization is severely limited due to a lack of capability and resources. Burkina Faso is a member of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), both of which aim to promote free trade in the region. One of its goals is to stimulate trade within the WAEMU group by exempting products having WAEMU origins from certain import criteria.
Burkina Faso -Canada
Burkina Faso and Canada have a long-standing trading relationship with tremendous growth potential. Burkina Faso is a developing country with prospects for Canadian businesses in a variety of industries, including mining, energy (particularly renewable energy), agriculture, infrastructure, clean technologies, and education. With over 3 billion dollars in mining assets, Canada is the country’s top mining investor. Canadian mining investments have become an essential economic lever in strengthening our trade links and helping Burkina Faso’s economic development. In 2018, Canadian investments in Burkina Faso totaled $1 817 million, with a growing emphasis on clean energy, a rapidly growing sector. In 2017, bilateral product commerce totaled $62 million, with $46.8 million in Canadian exports to Burkina Faso and $15.5 million in imports from Burkina Faso. Mineral products, fruits, and preserved foods were the most common imports, while machinery, automobiles, tools, electrical and electronic equipment, cereals, and printed products were the most common exports. In October 2017, Canada and Burkina Faso signed a foreign investment promotion and protection agreement. This agreement should encourage and protect investment between the two countries.
Ghana – Burkina Faso
When Thomas Sankara became president of Burkina Faso in 1983, relations between Ghana and Burkina Faso were warm and tight. Indeed, Jerry Rawlings and Sankara began talking about combining Ghana and Burkina Faso in the style of the defunct Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union, which Nkrumah had unsuccessfully tried to establish as the cornerstone for his ideal of a unified continental government. Ghana and Burkina Faso, a poorer country, developed their political and economic connections through joint commissions of cooperation and border demarcation committee meetings. Ghana-Burkina ties were characterized by frequent high-level discussions and cooperative military drills aimed at discouraging potential dissidents and protecting fledgling “revolutions” in each nation.
African Continental Free Trade Area
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was established in 2018, and trade will begin on January 1, 2021. It was founded by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, which brought together 54 of the African Union’s 55 member countries. Since the founding of the World Trade Organization, the free-trade area has grown to be the world’s largest in terms of the number of nations that participate. The AfCFTA Secretariat is based in Accra, Ghana, and was commissioned and handed over to the AU by Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo on August 17, 2020.
The African Union (AU) mediated the agreement, which was signed by 44 of the African Union’s 55 member states in Kigali, Rwanda, on March 21, 2018. Initially, members are required to remove tariffs on 90% of items, allowing free movement of commodities, goods, and services across the continent. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the deal will increase intra-African commerce by 52% by 2022.
The agreement’s broad objectives are to:
- Establish a single market, enhancing the continent’s economic unity.
- Through numerous rounds of bargaining, build a liberalized market.
- Facilitate the mobility of cash and people, allowing for more investment.
- Begin the process of forming a future continental customs union.
- Within member states, achieve sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development, gender equality, and structural reforms.
- Improve member states’ competitiveness within Africa and on the global market
- Promote industrial development, agricultural development, and food security by diversifying and developing regional value chains.
- Overcome the difficulties of having various and overlapping memberships
