By Vitalio Angula

Namibia’s Vice President, Lucia Witbooi, will leverage the country’s status as a frontier oil and gas market to capitalize on Algeria’s experience as an oil-producing nation at the Intra-Africa Trade Fair starting this week in Algeria’s capital, Algiers.

Organised by the Afreximbank in collaboration with the African Union (AU) and the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the continent’s flagship platform for trade and investment will bring together governments, businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs from Africa and beyond to showcase their goods and services.

Being held under the theme “A Gateway to New Opportunities”, the trade fair offers participants an opportunity to gain access to the entire African market of over 1.4 billion people with a combined GDP that exceeds $3.5 trillion under AfCFTA.

According to the fair’s organizers, past editions have yielded over $100 billion in trade and investment agreements involving more than 70,000 visitors and 4500 exhibitors.

Witbooi says her intervention at the trade fair will focus on putting across Namibia’s readiness to engage in mutually beneficial partnerships, particularly in the emerging oil and gas sector, renewable energy, fisheries, tourism, logistics, and the creative industries.

“This platform offers practical opportunities, especially in the oil and gas sector, where Algeria has decades of experience as an oil producer. Namibia is eager to learn from Algeria’s governance models, technical expertise, and strategies for ensuring that resource wealth translates into sustainable national development”, said Lucia Witbooi.

Algeria became an oil-producing country in 1958, when the first commercially viable oil was discovered and brought into production at the Edjeleh field in the Sahara Desert near the Libyan border.

When the country gained independence from France in 1962, it created the Sonatrach state oil and gas company to manage the exploration, production, and export of hydrocarbons.

From then on, oil and gas revenues became the backbone of Algeria’s economy, constituting over 95% of the country’s export earnings.

Namibia’s former Ambassador to Algeria, Panduleni Shingenge, says Namibia has a lot to learn from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member state Algeria, and the country’s business people have signaled readiness in sharing technical expertise, governance frameworks, and experience related to oil and gas.

“Algeria is excited at partnering with Namibia, and language barriers such as French and Arabic, which are spoken in Algeria, and English, which is spoken in Namibia, are minimal since government-to-government interactions are usually coordinated in English”, Shingenge told this publication.

Abdelkrim Diaf, Algeria’s Ambassador to Namibia, says the IATF provides Algeria with a unique opportunity to showcase its capacity to align Africa’s economic aspirations with logistical expertise and forward-thinking diplomacy.

“This continental fair goes beyond the framework of a trade exhibition and represents a critical milestone in the operationalization of the AfCFTA, offering Algeria an unparalleled platform to highlight its export potential”, Diaf said.

The intra-Africa Trade Fair will take place from 4-10 September and is being organized by the Afreximbank, AU Commission, and AfCFTA Secretariat.

Other partners include the Dangote Group, Atlantic Financial Group, ARISE IIP, and Tosyali Algeria.

Namibia’s Vice-President, Lucia Witbooi, is expected to make her intervention on Friday, 5 September.

She says that alongside her presentation on oil and gas, she will emphasize Namibia’s readiness to engage in mutually beneficial relationships in fisheries, tourism, logistics, the creative industries, and renewable energy.

“Ultimately, Namibia’s participation in the AITF is not just about trade but also about positioning our country and our continent for a future of shared prosperity and about building strategic alliances, opening new markets for Namibian businesses and contributing to Africa’s broader transformation agenda”, Witbooi said.