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tralac’s Daily News Selection
The selection: Tuesday, 4 October 2016
The WTO’s Eleventh Ministerial Conference (MC11) will be held in Buenos Aires in December 2017
Featured tweet, @sdonnan: Astonishing number cited by @JimYongKim. 85% of jobs in Ethiopia vulnerable to replacement by automation. Ugh...
2016 Ibrahim Index of African Governance
Sustainable Economic Opportunity is the IIAG’s lowest scoring and slowest improving category. However, 38 countries – together accounting for 73% of continental GDP – have recorded an improvement over the last decade. The largest progress has been achieved in the sub-category Infrastructure, driven by a massive improvement in the indicator Digital & IT Infrastructure, the most improved of all 95 indicators. However, the average score for Infrastructure still remains low, with the indicator Electricity Infrastructure registering a particularly worrying decline in 19 countries, home to 40% of Africa’s population. Progress has also been achieved in Rural Sector sub-category.
After 40-year slump, TAZARA charts new turnaround strategy (IPPMedia)
According to TAZARA managing director Bruno Ching’andu, the highest haulage ever achieved was 1.3 million tonnes and 2.8 million passengers in the 1977/78 and 1982/83 financial years respectively. The built-in capacity is 5 million tonnes and 3 million passengers per annum. Last week, TAZARA’s management announced that the authority needed about $250 million in short-term and $1.2 billion in long-term investment, with MD Ching’andu telling The Guardian that the money would be invested in company rolling stock (locomotives, wagons and passenger coaches); rehabilitation of TAZARA workshops, quarries and the concrete sleeper plant, railway track, signaling and telecommunications and human capital development. And now it transpires that China is ready to come to TAZARA’S rescue – if only as part of a bid to prevent its original pet project from going down the drain altogether. [TAZARA stakeholders set to meet in Beijing]
Kenya: Gloves off as sugar regulator vows bitter war against cartels (Daily Nation)
The sugar directorate has put on boxing gloves vowing to kick out cartels distorting the supply chain, and who have been blamed for the recent surge in retail prices. The directorate says a web of tightly-knit middlemen who have exclusive rights to buy sugar for distribution, are controlling the price at retail outlets. The move follows the recent increase in consumer prices of sugar with a kilogramme retailing at an average of Sh135 from Sh120 two months ago. The Sugar directorate has now ordered factories to sell the commodity directly to farmers, youth and women groups, reversing the long-standing tradition where millers have only been dealing with a handful of distributors.
Why supermarkets in Uganda should meet quality marks (Daily Monitor)
Recently, Uganda National Bureau of Standards awarded Nakumatt (U) Ltd’s chain of Supermarkets an international quality mark: International Standards Organisation (ISO) 9001-2008 certified. The standards body claims Nakumatt met customer, statutory and regulatory requirements applicable at both international and national level before it was awarded the ISO 9001-2008 certification. This means Nakumatt is the only retail supermarket in Uganda that has achieved this certification whose scope covers the retailing of household and consumer goods in Uganda.
Competition policy special feature: a selection of papers prepared for forthcoming UNCTAD, OECD conferences
Enforcement of competition policy in the retail sector: competition issues in the food retail chain (pdf, UNCTAD): From a regulatory perspective, conventional competition-related analysis of supermarket dealings with suppliers remains anchored in the view of supermarkets as merchants. Such analysis presents supermarkets as buyers of grocery products and equates buyer power for large volumes with lower purchase prices. Competition law addresses abuses of a dominant position and anti-competitive practices, yet most reported unfair trade practices do not fall under competition law, as most actors are in a strong but not dominant position. Some countries are thus currently adopting different solutions to alleviate the problem, including by extending the application of consumer protection legislation to business-to-business relationships or by using a variety of approaches, most of which are regulatory, while others are based on self-regulatory initiatives among market participants. In regulatory terms, the last few years have been a period of considerable change. [Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Competition Law and Policy (19-21 October, Geneva): conference documentation]
Big data: bringing competition policy to the digital era (pdf, OECD): This paper on “Big Data” represents the first step in a broader work stream of the OECD Competition Committee on Competition, Digital Economy and Innovation. In November 2016, the OECD will be holding a hearing discussion on Big Data to explore the implications on competition authorities’ work and whether competition law is the appropriate tool for dealing with issues arising from the use Big Data. As such this background paper aims to take a broad view of the topic and to present as many angles as possible in order to identify and discuss the most important channels through which Big Data may affect competition policy and competition law enforcement. [Note: prepared for 126th meeting of the Competition Committee, 29-30 November]
Defining geographic markets across national borders: background paper by the Secretariat (pdf, OECD): This paper seeks to underline the importance of a well-designed approach to geographic market definition, as well as the need to consider all available evidence rather than rely on one particular tool or indicator. Further, there is a pressing need in increasingly globalised markets for competition authorities to share information as well as experience in order to inform market definition decisions. [Note: background paper for Session III at the 124th meeting of the OECD Working Party No. 3 on Co-operation and Enforcement on 28-29 November]
Independence of competition authorities: background paper by the Secretariat (pdf, OECD): This paper discusses the major elements which ensure a stronger independence of competition authorities, such as structural independence from government, operational/functional independence as well as organisational and financial independence. It will focus, however, solely on independence from political pressures and will not address the equally important principle that competition authorities should also be independent from business interests. [Note: this document serves as a background paper for Session III at the 15th Global Forum on Competition, 1-2 December]
Second Africa Oil Governance Summit: communiqué ((26-27 Sept, Accra, ACEP)
Recommendations on promoting regional integration: African governments should increasingly involve their citizens in the implementation of the African Mining Vision which has been adopted as the blueprint for Africa’s natural resource development. We further demand that relevant stakeholders should make efforts to mainstream the Vision into local policies and laws. The development of Africa’s natural resources should promote regional integration through the development of shared infrastructure, shared institutional and regulatory capacity, and harmonized policies and legislations.
Why there is greater need for Africa to embrace intra-African trade (IPPmedia)
The aim of the workshop, organised by the AU Commission in Johannesburg, was to chart out the key elements of a continental agribusiness strategy, discuss modalities for tripling intra-African trade and create a continental apex agribusiness structure to oversee the growth of of the sector throughout Africa. Stakeholders, who included seed companies, women enterprise organisations, youth organisations trading companies, cooperatives, farmers, processors and agribusiness consulting firms, reached agreements in the three areas of strategy, trade and apex body formation as follows: Agribusiness Strategy, Intra Agricultural Goods Trade, Agribusiness Apex Body. During the presentation on Boosting Intra-African Trade in Agricultural Commodities and Services, Dan Acquaye, executive director of Agri-Impact Consult, described the difficulties being faced by Africans In the exports markets, giving example of the effects of EPA negotiations and other regulatory compliance occasionally being imposed on the traders.
East African Community: first financial sector development and regionalization project (World Bank)
Project description: The development objective of the project is to help countries formulate a regional approach to financial inclusion, further legal and regulatory, harmonize and build institutional capacity to manage the increasingly integrated financial sector in the EAC. The proposed Additional Financing seeks $10.5m over a three year implementation period, so that the project will have had a cumulative life of 8 years and 8 months when it closes on September 30, 2019. [Project documentation]
Tanzanian firm wins Sh927m award for 2007 post-poll loss (Business Daily)
One of Tanzania’s largest consumer goods dealers, Modern Holdings East Africa (Masafi), has won a Sh927m compensation for a consignment it lost during the 2007-2008 post-election violence in a landmark case that could open a floodgate of similar suits against the Kenyan government.
Strong shilling hurting Kenya’s exports in region (Business Daily)
The Kenyan shilling is nearly 20% overvalued against the dollar in real terms rendering the manufacturing sector uncompetitive in the regional export markets, economists at Renaissance Capital say. “The overvaluation is a cause for the low export to GDP (gross domestic product) ratio in Kenya, which has not been competitive in terms of manufacturing because of the strength of the currency over a number of years. This situation, which kicked in from 2006-2007, and since then the shilling has stayed strong relative to many other currencies,” said Renaissance Capital global chief economist Charles Robertson. Rencap analysis shows that Kenya’s ratio of exports to GDP has fallen consistently over the years, going from 21.6% in 2011 to 16.9% in 2014.
COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartitite: Climate Smart Agriculture workshop
The symposium provided a forum for researchers, policy makers, farmers and private sector to deliberate on emerging CSA innovations that have the potential to enhance farm level productivity, national and regional food and nutrition security. This is in addition to increasing adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers, improving landscape and farm level resilience, optimizing policy formulation, and reducing emissions from agricultural systems in the COMESA-EAC-SADC region. The symposium also provided a platform for dialogue on scientific evidence a contribution to the African Alliance on CSA Vision 25X25. [2nd Africa Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance: Annual Forum, 11-13 October, Nairobi]
FAO stresses role of trade in food security and climate change adaptation
Declining prices could thwart international efforts to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty unless steps are taken to guarantee decent incomes and livelihoods for small-scale producers, the United Nations agriculture agency said today. Mr Graziano da Silva pointed to the potential of trade in contributing to global food security and better nutrition, specifically underlining its potential role as an “adaptation tool” to climate change – countries that are projected to experience decreasing yields and production due to climate change will have to resort to the global markets to feed their populations. But the Director-General also noted that increased openness to trade can also bring risks. If not well managed, it “can undermine local production and consequently the livelihoods of the rural poor,” he said.
World Economic and Social Survey 2016: Climate change resilience - an opportunity for reducing inequalities
Speaking to reporters at UN Headquarters in New York on the launch of the report, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development Lenni Montiel said: “Persistent inequalities in access to assets, opportunities, political voice and participation, and in some cases, outright discriminations leave large group of people and community disproportionally exposed and vulnerable to climate hazards.” He added that through transformative policies, the government can “address the root causes of inequalities, to reduce the vulnerabilities of people to climate hazards, building their longer term resilience.”
China’s foreign trade still faces big downward pressure: Xinhua (Reuters)
China’s foreign trade still faces big downward pressure despite some improvement in August, Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday, citing Shen Danyang, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce. "Difficulties facing China’s foreign trade are not short term, the downward pressure on foreign trade is still big and uncertain and unstable factors are increasing," Shen was quoted as saying. "We cannot be blindly optimistic about China’s imports and exports and the situation is still complex and grim."
In loan to Afreximbank, China’s Eximbank makes first guarantee outside of China
Kenya close to deal with Afreximbank
Bitange Ndemo: Nairobi-Mombasa highway - an opportunity to embrace inclusivity
Uganda: Implications of the World Bank loan suspension
Zimbabwe: Forensic audit unearths massive corruption at Zimra
Zimbabwe: Grain imports boost NRZ volumes
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