Sputnik Africa had the opportunity to interview Langa Manqele, Head of Equities and Equity Derivatives at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), on the sidelines of the ongoing BRICS Summit in South Africa, to gain insights into the potential impact of the AfCFTA and the role of the BRICS in strengthening cooperation among emerging economies.
Manqele expressed satisfaction with the successful commencement of the summit, which spawned various sideline events with JSE's involvement, highlighting the presence of senior government officials and large business delegations.
Speaking about the AfCFTA, which is the largest free trade agreement since the creation of the World Trade Organization, the economist emphasized its importance in addressing the challenge of cross-border trade within the African continent. Established in 2018, the AfCFTA entered into force in 2019. It currently has 47 parties and 7 signatories out of Africa's 54 nations.
"A very important question of immediate concern for us, as the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and other exchanges in the continent, is the ease of cross-border trading. Currently, it is near impossible to trade across the continent," Manqele told Sputnik Africa.
According to the JSE official, currently, trading across the continent faces considerable hurdles due to factors such as the absence of a common currency.
He pointed to the example of South Africa, which has partnerships both with BRICS member countries and with Western states; according to Manqele, "all of these partners are of equal importance to the development of the continent and to the development of South Africa".
"Of course, there is nothing that prevents the BRICS countries or any of the countries to take whichever decisions about their monetary policy stance, the fiscal policy stance or the current stance," he said. "But ourselves, as a stock exchange, that services companies, some of them that are operating in a multiple jurisdiction, we would like to see a level of flexibility, a level of pragmatic economic approach to the challenges of the day, focused on development and growth of the emerging countries, including the BRICS."
Manquele stressed that the establishment of the African Free Trade Agreement provides an opportunity to enhance market access connectivity, ease securities transfer, and simplify trading and settlement processes across African exchanges, including the JSE.
"Our contribution, as an exchange, we think it will be to make sure that there are market access connectivity, ease of settlement, ease of securities transfer between the countries to make trading and settlement easy for securities," he said.
Turning to the topic of cooperation in the digital economy, Manqele underscored the importance of the BRICS platform and its role in strengthening cooperation between the BRICS countries and other emerging economies in the global south.
He highlighted the progress made by emerging economies in areas such as the microchip industry and mobile payments. In particular, India, South Africa, China and various African nations have seen high levels of adoption in these areas.
Manqele emphasized that leveraging technology opportunities is critical for BRICS as well as the broader Global South, given the younger demographic profile and increasing mobile penetration in these regions.
"If you look at the payments technology, mobile payments, in particular, India, South Africa, the rest of the continent, China, there's been a very high adoption of those technologies. So it is important for the BRICS as well as emerging markets broadly to take advantage of that opportunity," he said.
The 15th BRICS Summit will conclude on August 24, and its impact is expected to resonate across both African and international markets, shaping the future direction of economic collaboration among the participating nations.
Earlier on Wednesday, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor told her ministry's radio station that the BRICS countries had agreed on the key principles for the group's expansion to include a number of emerging economies from the global South, including Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Venezuela and others.