Greece is increasing its engagement with Africa in concert with the European Union’s new Global Gateway initiative, and as Africa launches the largest and most ambitious free trade agreement in the world.
In the past several months, Greek officials and business leaders have undertaken new trade missions throughout the continent, Greece has opened a new embassy in Senegal, and this month, Enterprise Greece hosted in Athens the annual European Trade Promotion Organisations conference to discuss policy developments and update on new initiatives in Africa.
“There is a huge opportunity emerging in Africa. It is the most dynamic continent in terms of growth rates and the youngest continent in terms of population,” said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in unveiling the government’s new National Strategic Extroversion Plan. “We aspire to open our wings and make the best use of potential opportunities in Africa.”
The Plan details almost three dozen initiatives towards Africa overall. This includes three in South Africa, four in Nigeria, 18 in Egypt and nine in Algeria − in addition to supporting multilateral activities in Africa, like the work of the ETPO and this year’s meeting.
On January 1, 2021, Africa launched the world’s largest free trade area − the African Continental Free Trade Area − an ambitious agreement encompassing 54 African countries, almost 1.3 billion people and a combined GDP of potentially 3.4 trillion dollars. The pact aims to create a single market for goods and services in order to deepen economic integration across the continent and further spur economic development.