Africa’s first digital free trade area for rollout in 2018

Trucks queue to pick up imported fertiliser being offloaded from a cargo ship at Mombasa, East Africa’s biggest and busiest port. PHOTO FILE | NATION

Businesses within the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) could save up to $450 million in clearance documentation once the bloc adopts blockchain technology for clearing imports.

Comesa is looking to roll out a digital free trade area — the first in Africa — modelled along the Malaysian Free Trade Zone, where parties to a transaction are connected in real time through a web of ledgers that are secure.