News
tralac’s Daily News selection
The selection: Wednesday, 3 February 2016
Some conference dates to diarise:
2016 Mining Indaba (Cape Town, 7-11 February)
EAC’s Council of Ministers (Arusha, 22 February) and Heads of State summit (Arusha, 29 February)
Taking stock of IIA reform (Geneva, 16 March)
AfDB Annual Meetings (Lusaka, 23-27 May)
TICAD VI (Nairobi, 27-28 August)
Second Southern African Business Forum (August 2016)
China-Mauritius relations 'have gone beyond the scope of bilateral relations' (FMPRC)
Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China-Mauritius relations are of increasing strategic significance and have gone beyond the scope of bilateral relations. Looking into the future, China’s cooperation ideas are as followsThe unique geographic and regional advantages of Mauritius should be fully leveraged to gradually build the country into a gateway for China’s investment in Africa and a hub for China’s connectivity cooperation with Africa. Both sides could explore the feasibility of jointly establishing a financial service centre for cooperation with Africa and a training platform for Africa and the feasibility to promote Mauritius’s aviation connection with all other African countries. Second is to expand China-Mauritius cooperation eastward to the Indian Ocean with a focus on enhancing mutually beneficial cooperation in maritime economy. China views Mauritius as a natural extension along the Maritime Silk Road and will explore effective ways with Mauritius for jointly building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road based on an open attitude and the principle of voluntariness.
China and Mozambique sign visa waiver agreement (Macauhub)
Navigating the new normal: China and global resource governance (Chatham House)
The report considers the costs and benefits of a more active role for China in global resources governance. It recognizes that different commodities face different challenges and require different governance frameworks, and that different regions require context-specific responses. The report also considers the risks of more limited engagement of China and other new actors, which could mean declining relevance for existing processes and institutions that govern resource production, trade and consumption, and a diminished capacity to tackle longer-term challenges like climate change.
Carlos Lopes: 'Conflict grows out of inequality and exclusion' (UNECA)
Results show that the economic performance of conflict areas is on average 10% below that of conflict-free areas in most GDP performance categories. A study estimated a loss of 284 billion USD (in constant 2000 rates) for 23 African countries, from 1990 to 2005. This figure represented then an average annual loss of 15% of their GDP. Regression analysis indicates a loss of about 2.2% GDP growth due to conflict. The interrelated nature of African economies also means that the costs of war within a sub-region generally result in economic costs for neighbouring countries. These include production losses through loss of opportunities deriving from migration, trade losses, increased costs of security and policing and the costs of supporting refugees.
Sandra Uwera: 'Intra-regional trade key to Africa's industrial growth, competitiveness' (New Times)
So the Kigali meeting was crucial as we wanted to collect views of the private sector in the COMESA trade bloc on the rules of origin regime to ensure a balanced framework. We have so far made head way on a number of issues, including agreeing to put in place simple and predictable rules that will facilitate intra-regional trade. We have agreed that rules of origin should be administered in a consistent, uniform, impartial, transparent and reasonable manner to promote industrialisation in the region. We are also aware of the fact that when rules of origin are not flexible, the cost of compliance exceeds benefits accruing from market access, a reason why some exporters do not comply with the rules. As a result, exporters will trade with companies in countries with favoured rules, this means low intra-regional trade, and slow pace of industrial growth in the region. Member states still don’t understand the benefits of creating a more harmonised regional market. We need to look at the bigger picture of creating more than $1 trillion in GDP simply because we decided to trade among ourselves. [The author is CEO, COMESA Business Council and SG of the Tripartite Private Sector platform]
Phyllis Wakiaga: 'Africa's future lies in free movement of goods, people' (Capital FM)
Over the last decade, Kenya exports average Sh2 billion while imports averages Sh313 million between 2004 and 2014 making Nigeria a significant trading partner for Kenya. The two countries have committed to double their trade and investment levels in five years. In 2014, Kenya’s share of world exports was 0.03%, 33.5% of these exports are from the manufacturing sector. On the other hand, the countries share of world imports is 0.10% pointing to the growing trade imbalance with surging imports. Africa share of global trade is 2% which is still low. There therefore an enormous potential to enhance Kenya’s with the rest of Africa particularly in growing the manufacturing sector with a view to enhance exports of value added products. [The author is the CEO, Kenya Association of Manufacturers]
New PS promises to address Kenya's trade balance (Daily Nation)
Newly appointed Permanent Secretary Chris Kiptoo says he will deliver a trade policy to address the imbalance in Kenya exports against imports. Mr Kiptoo said he will come up with a new set of rules on taxes, subsidies, import and exports in the next four months to boost Kenyan trade. The former TradeMark East Africa Kenya Country Director said he will also spearhead the development of an export strategy to boost Kenya’s capacity to produce for the global market.
Kenya: Govt told to involve MPs before signing trade pacts (Daily Nation)
In a report, the Kenya Human Rights Commission said Parliament was best suited to deliberate on such matters which could see Kenyan food industries edged out by multinationals whose contracted farmers enjoy huge subsidies in their respective countries. “The full implementation of Economic Partnership Agreements, may shift consumption away from local products, to EU goods. This may in turn lead to a decline in production and employment in large-scale industries,” it said. The report follows completion of a study entitled, ‘Impact of EU trade agreement EAC-EU EPA on Kenya’s Agriculture’, where KHRC called for establishment of a monitoring mechanism incase the agreement is ratified to track negative effects.
South Africa: AGOA compromises raise questions about goals (Business Day)
This is interesting because AGOA has evolved from what many regarded as an aid or economic access programme into an instrument for the creation of markets for US goods. This is not objectively bad from the perspective of the US. But it does raise important questions about long-term industrial trade and industrial policy as implemented today by the government. It has to be asked, in defending the benefits under AGOA, whether the government is making short-term choices rather than thinking long-term about developing domestic industry over time. [The author, Xhanti Payi, is head of research at Nascence Advisory and Research]
South Africa: Lucky Cement drops court challenge (IOL)
Pakistan cement producer Lucky Cement has decided against reviving its South African court challenge to the imposition by the International Trade Administration Commission of anti-dumping duties on Portland cement imports from Pakistan. The company said it had instead decided to put its faith in the Pakistan government’s approach to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to challenge and revoke the anti-dumping duties.
Port of Maputo handles less cargo in 2015 (Macauhub)
The cargo handled at the port of Maputo in 2015 – 15.6 million tons – represented a contraction of 19.17% compared to 19.3 million tons processed in 2014, said Tuesday in Maputo the port’s management company. The Maputo Port Development Corporation explained the slump with the difficult conditions experienced in international markets, following a sharp decline in commodity prices compared to previous years. The largest declines in tonnage were seen in loading of coal and magnetite, as well as in the car terminal and sugar, the MPDC said in a statement.
Mozambique: Private credit bureau legislation (SPEED)
In 2016 the Bank of Mozambique presented regulations to the law for discussion. The report below analyses those regulations and provides recommendations.
The impact of foreign direct investment on productivity and growth in SADC (UCT)
This thesis focuses on the impact of foreign direct investment on productivity and growth in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which is dealt with in three related studies. The first study undertakes an investigation of the existence and nature of technology and productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment to domestic firms in the region, while the second investigates the role of the spatial density of economic activities in speeding up the productivity externalities and impact of foreign direct investment in FDI host countries. In the last study, we investigate the role of intra-regional bilateral foreign direct investment between South Africa and countries in SADC in influencing growth and income convergence in the region. [The author: Nicholas Masiyandima]
Nairobi grabs top FDI destination slot, leaves behind Joburg (Daily Nation)
Nairobi edged out Johannesburg to become the top destination of foreign direct investment in Africa in 2015 reflecting improving investor confidence in Kenya. A report by an investment monitoring platform, FDI Markets also shows that FDI flows into Kenya rose 37% in 2015 compared to 2014 adding that Kenya also attracted 12.6% of FDI inflows into Africa, second only to South Africa’s 17.1%. "This is further compounded by Nairobi attracting the most FDI on the continent at city level in 2015, beating Johannesburg, which has held this accolade since 2010," notes the report.
6 initiatives tackling African electrification (Devex)
A host of alliances and initiatives have been set up to address the energy deficit challenge. They bring together a range of institutions from business, government and civil society under a common objective of reducing poverty and promoting inclusive growth by meeting basic energy needs. To give a sense of the scope of the challenge and the range of actors involved, Devex has pulled together a shortlist of projects and initiatives that are dedicated to addressing energy shortages in Africa.
Investment facilitation: an Action Menu (UNCTAD)
The Action Menu proposed here for discussion is based on UNCTAD’s Investment Policy Framework and rich experiences and practices of investment promotion and facilitation efforts worldwide over the past decades. The Action Menu proposes 10 action lines with a series of options for investment policymakers to adapt and adopt for national and international policy needs: the package includes actions that countries can choose to implement unilaterally, and options that can guide international collaboration or that can be incorporated in international investment agreements. The Action Menu should be read in the broader context of UNCTAD’s Investment Policy Framework for Sustainable Development.
Record number of Investor-State Arbitrations filed in 2015 (UNCTAD)
The Enhanced Data Dissemination Initiative 2: update after Ghana conference (IMF)
Botswana: Strategy for the development of statistics (AfDB)
India: Commerce minister holds consultation with Export Promotion Councils (Business Standard)
'Indian likely to become CFO of AIIB’ (The Hindu)
US Delegation to the African Union Summit: press briefing (State Department)
Closing 2016 Youth Forum, senior UN official says young people key to new sustainability agenda (UN)
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