Jordaan said intra-African trade \u2013 trade between countries in Africa – and not foreign aid, is the key to sustainable development in Africa.<\/p>\n
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) highlighted that Africa is lagging far behind other regions<\/strong><\/a> when it comes to intra-continental trade.<\/p>\n Intra-African trade was around 2% during the period 2015 to 2017. America, Asia, and Europe, in comparison, had inter-continental trade of 47%, 61%, and 67% respectively.<\/p>\n Jordaan said this low base meant there was great potential to increase intra-African trade and use it as a growth opportunity.<\/p>\n \u201cThe recent African Continental Free Trade Agreement could create significant economic growth \u2013 potentially a double-digit growth boost – and materially reduce prices for Africa’s 1.2 billion consumers,\u201d Jordaan said.<\/p>\n The plan behind the free trade agreement is to allow goods and services to flow freely between African countries.<\/p>\n It can make Africa the biggest free trade area in the world with an integrated market GDP of around $3 trillion.<\/p>\n Michael Jordaan<\/p><\/div>\n There are, however, many non-tariff barriers like delays at border posts or non-standardised customs procedures which are holding the continent back.<\/p>\n Jordaan said these bottlenecks will have to be resolved to optimise trade between African countries.<\/p>\n Another big challenge for intra-African trade is making it easy for big and small exporters to be paid by anyone in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cAfrica is the most under-penetrated payments market in the world. Making payments across Africa should be as fast and inexpensive as making a local payment,\u201d Jordaan said.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, the fact that the 55 African countries have 41 different currencies means that payments are slow, expensive, and that both importers as well as exporters face exchange rate risk.\u201d<\/p>\n A unified currency and a unified payment system for Africa would bring great benefits to inter-regional trade and investment.<\/p>\n Another benefit of a single, independent central bank is that individual states cannot raid their own central banks by printing money and causing inflation.<\/p>\n It is also likely that the overall real interest rates would be lower given that there would be more market confidence in a single, independent central bank.<\/p>\n This may not happen soon, or even in our lifetime, as many governments may not want to let go of their turf, Jordaan highlighted.<\/p>\n Given that governments may take awfully long to agree to a single African currency, it is possible that a cryptocurrency can serve the purpose of enabling trade across Africa – and the world.<\/p>\n \u201cCryptocurrency payments are fast and inexpensive. There could be an African or global stablecoin which is not as volatile as say Bitcoin or Ethereum,\u201d said Jordaan.<\/p>\n \u201cI know that for some this seems like a crazy dream, but in 2009, when Bitcoin was created, no one would have believed that cryptocurrencies would reach a market cap of $2.3 trillion.\u201d<\/p>\n Jordaan highlighted that the Euro was only created in 1999 which shows monetary innovations happen all the time.<\/p>\n \u201cEven the rand, born in 1961, is a relatively recent currency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Jordaan said he will keep dreaming of an Africa that trades with itself – like Europe and Asia \u2013 instead of relying on foreign aid.<\/p>\n \u201cA single African currency would go a long way to make borders matter less,\u201d Jordaan said.<\/p>\n A single currency for Africa, which can be a decentralised cryptocurrency, will make it much easier to trade and invest across the continent. – Michael Jordaan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":395759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44696],"tags":[35,6204,22323],"class_list":["post-395745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-headline","tag-michael-jordaan","tag-montegray-capital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395745"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395933,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395745\/revisions\/395933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Michael-Jordaan-Companies.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Bitcoin](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/pexels-roger-brown-5126268-scaled-e1610974077209.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNow read: Bitcoin\u2019s domination in decline as Ether hits $3,000<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"