South Africa’s Business Council of the BRICS has called on African governments to ensure the seamless movement of goods and services across the continent to improve trade and investments.

“To improve trade and investments in Africa, enabling easier mobility between business communities is important,” stated the council chairman, Busi Mabuza.

She made the call at a business roundtable and dialogue session organised by the South African consulate general in Lagos and Brand South Africa.

BRICS is the regional economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Ms Mabuza said peculiar visa regimes of each African country should be reviewed to encourage Africans to travel across the continent unimpeded. She stressed that Africans must realise that trade could improve only when there were interactions.

“I believe that the cries of businesses around visa regimes of our various countries are not unfounded. Trade only happens when we interact, so we need a review of visa regimes across the continent,” she stated. “Unless business communities are talking to one another, indulging and cultivating investments and trade opportunities, we are not going to get anywhere.”

Ms Mabuza identified lack of finance as the major challenge the organisation had been confronted with. She noted that trade between South Africa and other member nations of the BRICS had almost doubled over the past five years.

Ms Mabuza assured South Africa would explore trade opportunities in agriculture, tourism and aviation.

“The components of trade are not in our favour yet because we still export raw materials, but we want to improve on value addition so as to close the trade gap in the next 10 years,” she said.

Ms Mabuza, who doubles as the chairperson of the Global BRICS Business Council, established in 2013, commended the efforts of its nine working groups as the council celebrates its 10th anniversary.

“We extend our gratitude for the support and partnership shown by our BRICS business council counterparts. The collective successes shared in the past decade speak for themselves. BRICS is now recognised as one of the world’s leading trade blocs, representing over a third of global GDP,” Ms Mabuza added.

The theme for the dialogue session was ‘Promoting Regional and Continental Trade through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and BRICS in Africa’.

AfCFTA is a free trade area encompassing most of Africa. It was established in 2018 by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, which has 43 parties and 11 signatories.

It is the largest free trade area by number of member states after the World Trade Organisation.

(NAN)