STORY: African coffee-producing countries push for intra-continental trade of coffee products
DATELINE: Aug. 10, 2023
LENGTH: 0:02:05
LOCATION: Kampala
CATEGORY: ECONOMY
 
SHOTLIST:
1. various of the coffee summit
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (English): SOLOMON RUTEGA, Secretary general of the Inter-African Coffee Organization
3. various of the coffee summit setup and coffee packing 
4. SOUNDBITE 2 (English): EZRA SURUMA, Uganda's former finance minister, economist
 
STORYLINE:
 
Delegates from Africa's 25 coffee-producing countries are meeting in the Ugandan capital of Kampala with the aim of influencing the African Union to make coffee a priority crop so as to pull millions of people out of poverty.
 
The meeting, dubbed the 2nd G-25 Heads of State Africa Coffee Summit, is convening from Aug. 7 to Aug. 10 under the theme "Transforming the African Coffee Sector through Value Addition," which is in line with the theme of the 2023 African Union agenda that focuses on accelerating the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). 
 
Experts argue that once the continent's political leadership understands the power of coffee in transforming economies, it will bolster the continent's efforts to internally trade the "strategic commodity" but also speak with a united force on the international market.
 
SOUNDBITE 1 (English): SOLOMON RUTEGA, Secretary general of the Inter-African Coffee Organization
"The idea was born out of the issues that the African coffee sector has been facing challenges for many years. For the past 30 years, Africa's production has declined or remained static. We are now about 13 million bags. We have also noticed that productivity has also gone down. And as a group of member states, as the Inter-African Coffee Organization, we decided that the political leadership was needed to buy into this concept of how we can address these challenges."
 
SOUNDBITE 2 (English): EZRA SURUMA, Uganda's former finance minister, economist 
"In recent several years, there has been an attempt to strengthen the cooperation of these African producing countries so that they can have one voice in the international market, because individually, they are insignificant, and cannot influence the market, but coming together, for example, petroleum countries have been coming together and influencing their products, we would also like to have more influence on the products that we sell."
 
The World Bank estimates that the AfCFTA will increase Africa's income by 450 billion dollars by 2035 and increase intra-African exports by more than 81 percent. 
 
Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Kampala. 
(XHTV)