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tralac’s Daily News Selection
The selection: Thursday, 29 September 2016
Profiled tweets from the WTO Public Forum:
@wto: For Liberia it is more expensive to trade with neighbours than with China, so trade facilitation is essential - Minister @AxelAddy; @Gonzalez_WBG: In Africa, we must view trade ministries differently...for their ability to drive jobs & transform economies - Minister @AxelAddy
The Namibian-German Centre for Logistics annual conference is underway in Swakopmund. The theme: An opportunity for trade in Africa
The OECD’s Africa Forum 2016 takes place today in Paris. The theme: African cities for Africa’s development
The UNECA’s Carlos Lopes announced yesterday, in an interview with Le Monde, that he would be stepping down at the end of October this year.
Profiled new trade publications:
Launched, in Arusha: ‘The EABC Business Agenda: deepening private and public sector participation in EAC integration’ (EABC): The EABC Business Agenda salutes and celebrates the EAC business community’s many success stories, invaluable contributions, and innovative solutions that respond imaginatively to the unique challenges that continue to confront our region. The book further demonstrates that at the EABC Secretariat, we are ready to engage with both the private and public sectors in the EAC at every level - from having strategic dialogues to meeting the challenges of day-today regional integration and development issues through the collaborative efforts of stakeholders from diverse sectors across the region. The EABC Business Agenda is, at once, both a ready reckoner and an elegant coffee-table accessory, with unique and crisp profiles, in-depth interviews and shared global best practices pioneered in the corporate world to promote new efficiencies and improve both the transparency and accessibility of quality service delivery to support key integration and development initiatives in our region.
Launched in Geneva: African perspectives on trade and the WTO (WTO): The WTO launched a new publication entitled “African perspectives on trade and the WTO” on Day 2 of the Public Forum. The book – co-published by the WTO and Cambridge University Press — examines how enhanced participation in world trade could help Africa achieve further growth and emphasizes the need for the continent to undertake structural reforms to underpin its economic transformation. The book brings together contributions from African policy-makers and representatives of partner institutions to assess how the multilateral trading system could assist Africa in overcoming some of its greatest challenges in areas such as governance, economic diversification and integration into global value chains.
Abidjan-Lagos Corridor: coordination meeting update (AfDB)
Delegates from the five member countries – Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire – gave status reports of their implementation activities on the corridor, while highlighting areas for further improvement. In terms of trade facilitation, the countries called for the creation of a knowledge- and data-sharing platform. The representatives also espoused the need for effective implementation of rules and protocols to facilitate free movement of people and goods. The following recommendations and key takeaways were drawn from the meeting: (i) combining and strengthening financial interventions (ii) creating a platform for knowledge management and sharing (iii) assessing development impacts of activities along the corridor (iv) drawing valuable lessons and adopting best practices from other regions (v) setting up a coordination mechanism for improved and accelerated corridor performance, as well as the creation of an effective tool to monitor implementation of Heads of States’ decisions.
Promoting growth poles in West Africa (UNECA)
The overall objective of this mission (26-30 Sept) is to set the basis of an ECA technical assistance to Burkina Faso, to support its development strategy, mainly with regard to development planning systems and statistics. In parallel and over the same period, the ECA Subregional Office for West Africa is organizing, at the request of Nigerien authorities, a mission to share experiences on the strategy to promote development poles, between senior officials from Niger and their counterparts from Burkina Faso.
Abou Fall: ‘Development of export industries in West Africa critical to reap maximum AGOA benefits’ (AfDB)
In West Africa, exports to the US from seven countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal) totaled $5.3bn in 2014, of which $1.3bn was exported under AGOA (including GSP – Generalised System of Preferences), which represents about 24.52% of total exports to the US. The low percentage of AGOA exports can be attributed to the fact that most West African countries export primary products that attract no duty under the Normal Trade Regime. In addition to the low level of AGOA exports as a result of duty-free under the NTR, US importers also paid duty on products that were supposed to enter the US duty-free under the GSP and AGOA, hence a missed opportunity for the selected African countries to take advantage of AGOA. For the seven selected countries, the total value of unclaimed AGOA/GSP exports in 2014 was $1.3bn, or 24.77% of exports, while in 2015, the total value of unclaimed AGOA/GSP exports was $520m, or 17.85% of total exports. By value, top product categories – petroleum products excluded – that entered the U.S. from the seven countries with unclaimed AGOA benefits were: prepared foodstuffs, vegetable products, and textiles and apparel. [The author is a senior trade and investment officer at the AfDB]
Related: Speech by Axel M. Addy (pdf), Liberia’s Minister of Commerce and Industry at AGOA Forum
Promoting intra-African investment, regional investment policy framework and SMEs policies consultancy (pdf, AfDB)
The specific duties and responsibilities of the consultant will include: (i) provide support to three selected RECs, namely ECOWAS, WAEMU and CEMAC in designing or reviewing their Regional Investment Policy Framework or regional investment agreements and SMEs policies to address the misalignment between the regional policy and the national policies (ii) help the above-mentioned RECs and regional member countries to review these frameworks, agreements and policies; update, harmonize and implement them (iii) develop and recommend SMEs policies to promote SMEs integration in the regional productive/value chains and access to intra-regional/African investments and markets.
A trade in services special feature:
At WTO, India proposes ways to cut transaction costs (LiveMint): India has floated a concept paper (pdf) at the World Trade Organization on how to reduce transaction costs that impose regulatory and administrative burden on global trade in services, on the lines of what was concluded in the so-called Trade Facilitation Agreement of 2014 for trade in goods. “Like the TFA, there is a need for a counterpart agreement in services, an agreement on Trade Facilitation in Services, which can result in reduction of transaction costs associated with unnecessary regulatory and administrative burden on trade in services,” India argued in the paper submitted to the WTO’s Working Party on Domestic Regulation on 23 September. India’s concept note also covers specific issues in four modes of supply of services of the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services.
Two new papers from ILEAP, CUTS International Geneva and the University of Sussex’ CARIS:
Services trade data in LDCs & LICs: challenges, “better performers” and pathways for improvement: Nevertheless, some have performed better than others at collecting, compiling and reporting on services trade data. This paper identifies good practices successfully adopted by these “better performers”, which could be replicated in other countries. It suggests that, more than the level of economic development itself, key determinants of success are an enabling legislative provisions, the use of multiple data sources and checks and balances, as well as securing external technical assistance.
Improving services data collection in Least-Developed and Low-Income Countries - a toolkit: Designed based on good practices tested in similar countries, the strategy proposed in this toolkit follows a sequenced process from adopting enabling legislative provisions and institutional frameworks, to securing external technical assistance and diversifying data sources. [Both papers can be downloaded after user registration]
India to sign social security pacts with other BRICS nations (LiveMint): India will sign social security agreements with Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa after a consensus emerged at a BRICS labour ministers conference on Wednesday that they will promote labour mobility in the grouping. India has been trying to persuade the US to sign a similar bilateral social security agreement, which could help bring back billions of dollars worth of contributions made by Indians while working in the US even though they were not allowed to avail of that country’s social security benefits. Though there is not much labour movement among BRICS countries at the moment, India is of the opinion that with relations strengthening among the five emerging economies, more of their citizens will seek jobs in each other’s countries and an enabling framework is the first formal step in that direction. [BRICS Labour and Employment Ministers’ declaration: full text]
Kenya, CCA trade MoU signed (Standard)
The Corporate Council on Africa and the Kenyan Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives have signed a MoU to formalise a partnership to promote US-Kenya trade and investment. “We view this MOU as an important and serious commitment to work on key programs between Kenya and the US private sector so that both our nations benefit,” said CCA President Stephen Hayes. “We will be working with Kenya closely over this period and far beyond.”
Bank of China Mauritius: update (GoM)
The Bank of China Mauritius Ltd will add to other major international names operating in Mauritius including HSBC, Barclays, and Standard Chartered, amongst others. According to Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, besides enhancing the credibility of our jurisdiction, this subsidiary would enhance trade ties and direct investments between Mauritius and China, and contribute in a significant way to expand the global connection of our financial system. He further underlined that with the setting up of operations of the Bank of China in Mauritius, it will be easier for Mauritius to realise its ambition of hosting a renminbi clearing centre for the region which he said will further cement the role of Mauritius as a regional financial hub.
Tanzania: Researchers propose policy reviews to spur pharmaceutical sector (Daily News)
Policy Research for Development (REPOA), in its policy brief report (pdf) released yesterday in Dar es Salaam, proposed the restructuring of policies to favour local producers currently moving out of production of basic affordable medicines over profitability concerns. Mr Katera said that successful African experiences show that the pharmaceutical industry can be sustained and grown with an active industrial policy. He noted that policies to reverse any decline would require government’s action on targeted business support and collaboration with manufacturers. Mr Katera identified some of the challenges as tax exemptions on imported medicines, the situation that discourages domestic manufacturers.
Zambia: Government determined to revamp textile industry (Lusaka Times)
Government says it is determined to revamp the Textile and Garment subsector because of its vast potential to spur economic diversification. Commerce Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe said her Ministry is to this effect revising its commercial, trade and industry policy in order to have a more integrated and coherent policy intervention that support growth and development of Zambia’s trade and industrial sector.
Citizen engagement in rulemaking: evidence on regulatory practices in 185 countries (World Bank)
This paper presents a new global data set on citizen engagement in rulemaking and provides detailed descriptive statistics for the indicators. The paper then provides preliminary analysis on how the level of citizen engagement correlates with other social and economic outcomes. To support this analysis, we developed a composite citizen engagement in rulemaking score around the publication of proposed regulations, consultation on their content and the use of regulatory impact assessments.
Zambia to seek regional bodies’ guidance over Zimbabwe trade ban
SA Competition Commission statement on raids on cargo shipping companies
East African nations urged to take advantage of strong growth: an FT interview with Kenya’s central bank governor, Patrick Njoroge
African countries to adopt Rwanda’s YouthConnekt youth empowerment initiative
Rwanda: MPs question officials on agriculture export project
Alan Winters, Jim Rollo, Peter Holmes: ‘Leaving the EU Customs Union: what is the issue?’
India: Govt eyes big jump in World Bank’s Doing Business index
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