APA – Dakar (Senegal) The Director General of Senegal’s Customs, Papa Ousmane Gueye has exhorted the 18 member countries of the African Alliance for Electronic Commerce (AACE) to work towards establishing a single trade mechanism to save time in expediting business activities.
“The AACE projects will in the long run contribute to the dematerialization of procedures and enable the further fluidity of the trade exchange in the continent. “Therefore, I urge leaders of the AACE to set up a mechanism towards a single desk. This will further make the customs procedures easier” Senegal’s customs boss suggested.
Papa Ousmane Gueye opened the seventh General Assembly of the AACE on Tuesday, 31 May, witnessed by a representative of the Commission of the UEMOA and international actors involved in the implementation and management of single desk scheme in foreign trade. Papa Ousmane Gueye furthermore welcomed the many AACE initiatives in terms of paperless customs procedures.
To that effect he promised further support to his administration. Participants in the meeting of the AACE, which is a group of customs operators promoting the sharing of experiences in Africa, discussed the structure of their project and the single desk scheme. Created in Senegal in 2008 and launched in Ethiopia the following year, the AACE has increased from 9 to 18 members. They include Senegal, Egypt, Ghana, Madagascar, Mauritius, Ivory Coast, Mali, Libya, Kenya, Republic of Congo, Morocco, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Mozambique and the UEMOA Commission.
