Zim entrepreneur launches Intra-Africa Trade easy digital platform

ZIMBABWEAN entrepreneur and business influencer, Mr Chad Chawanda, has introduced an online platform that promotes ease of doing trade while promoting regional integration under the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AFCFTA) agreement.

Zimbabwe is a signatory to the historic regional trade deal that seeks to enhance and promote trade and investments on the African continent by removing tariffs and other trade barriers between African countries.

The digital platform called ‘Insights on Africa’, which can be downloaded, is expected to be a catalyst as it provides digital space for African entrepreneurs to showcase their products, engage in business-to-business meetings and explore trade opportunities within the continent.

It is expected to add value to initiatives such as the Intra Africa Trade Fair (IATF), which is a trade fair event that supports the objectives of the AfCFTA by facilitating trade and economic cooperation among African countries, being hosted in Algeria in 2025.

In an interview, Mr Chawanda said the app was launched on Africa Day, and will go a long way in promoting intra-African trade, economic, integration and sustainable development across the continent.

Mr Chad Chawanda

“Through exposure from the IATF events, podcasts, and my knowledge and experience in doing business on the continent for 22 years, have led me to create this platform,” he said.

“I decided to launch the platform on Social media as a way of introducing a community platform for connecting those that are committed to contributing to a better Africa.

“The platform is for everyone and we decided to create a community platform that is linked to solutions for some of our current challenges,” said Chawanda from his Dubai base.

He said the downloadable application comes with a number of benefits and functionalities.

“We made sure it caters for everyone, it has different collections (tiers) one is called ‘Africa Golf Club’, which is a virtual golf club,” said Chawanda.

“The goal is to grow intra-Africa golf travel. The other collections are purely for business and they cover most sectors of the economy.

“Members are called insiders and will be able to interact in the platform, they will also be able to buy and sell businesses. The platform is also linked to a Pan African travel card, which gives members up to 50 percent off their travel costs.”

This is one of the first entrepreneurs to create a solution that covers the whole continent after the launch of the AfCFTA, which was launched in January 2021.

According to the AFCFTA secretariat, trading that started under the guided trade initiative should reach 31 countries in the next few months.

During the height of Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Chawanda also started a podcast on Intra Africa Trade and has interviewed over 130 guests. The podcast was done in partnership with IATF 2021 and 2023.

IATF is an initiative of Afreximbank in collaboration with the African Union and the AFCFTA Secretariat. In 2021 it was hosted in Durban, South Africa and in 2023 it was hosted in Cairo, Egypt Cairo.-chronicle