Côte d'ivoire Country Commercial Guide
Learn about the market conditions, opportunities, regulations, and business conditions in côte d'ivoire, prepared by at U.S. Embassies worldwide by Commerce Department, State Department and other U.S. agencies’ professionals
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Trade Agreements
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Côte d’Ivoire is a signatory to the following trade agreements:      

  • African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA): Côte d’Ivoire is a party to the new AfCFTA adopted in March 2018.
  • Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which includes 15 West African countries.  To integrate the West African economy, ECOWAS in 1979 the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS), which is a tool that aims at the operationalization of the Free Trade Area in the region.  The ETLS mechanism ensures the free movement of products between ECOWAS Member States without the payment of customs duties and taxes.  Back in 1979, the ETLS only covered agricultural products and handmade crafts.  Since 1990, it has been extended to industrial products. This expansion required the formulation of rules relating to the definition of the concept of “products originating” from ECOWAS or “rule of origin.”     
  • West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), which includes Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo; all share the West African CFA currency.  Under the WAEMU treaty, Côte d’Ivoire has undertaken to coordinate its economic, financial, and structural policies with most francophone partners in the region. 
  • Organisation pour l’Harmonisation en Afrique du Droit des Affaires (OHADA), an organization that harmonizes a broad range of African legal systems that previously were characterized by a wide disparity in business law, codes, rules, regulations, and local conventions affecting business.  The agreement creates a number of uniform acts and sets up organizations when necessary to implement the acts.   
  • Côte d’Ivoire is a beneficiary of the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allows the country to export eligible goods into the United States tariff-free.  AGOA is set to expire in 2025.
  • Côte d’Ivoire ratified an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU) in 2016.  Under it, the EU provides duty-free, quota-free access for Côte d’Ivoire’s exports to the EU.  For its part, Côte d’Ivoire is progressively reducing its tariffs to zero for 85 percent of its EU imports by 2029.  (As a result, covered EU exports benefit from a preferential tariff margin vis a vis U.S. exports to Côte d’Ivoire.) 
  • Côte d’Ivoire signed an EPA with the United Kingdom in 2020.  This agreement replicates the tariff treatment under the European Union.  The EPA gives products from the United Kingdom the same tariff treatment as products from the European Union.

 


 

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