News
tralac’s Daily News Selection
The selection: Friday, 11 November 2016
@BaldwinRE: Mega-regionalism, the big trend in global trade governance for 10 yrs, died this week (Trump). => Breathing room for WTO?
@CohenOnAfrica: Under Trump, AGOA will be seen as a one-way trade benefit for Africa. Trump likely to demand free trade reciprocity like the EU.
Expert consultation on trade and nutrition (hosted by FAO, 15-16 November, Rome)
The EABC will convene a private sector forum on trade and services – Leveraging the common market to create competitiveness (17-18 November, Dar es Salaam)
The Germany Africa Business Forum will be held in Nairobi (8-10 February 2017)
The inaugural Africa-ASEAN Business Expo will be held in Sandton (6-8 November 2017)
Featured resources:
tralac’s weekly newsletter: Is doing business in Sub-Saharan Africa becoming more challenging?
Presentations from ICTD’s recent workshop on gender and tax in Africa. Profiled presentation: Gender and cross-border trade: the experiences of women in Malawi (pdf, by Michael Masiya, Malawi Revenue Authority)
Performance and expenditure reviews of selected South African public programmes or policies, across six sectors. Profiled technical report: Export promotion in the IDZs (pdf, DNA Economics)
Kenya, Uganda IT e-directories (ITC)
Online businesses in Kenya and Uganda have a new tool to connect to international clients and boost their exports following the launch of e-directories for the two countries. The Ugandan Exporter Directory and the Exporter Directory for Kenya will enable tech companies in each country to showcase their products and services on a one-stop online platform. The e-directories are designed to serve as a platform for B2B interaction. The two directories have been developed as part of the International Trade Centre’s Netherlands Trust Fund (NTF III), an umbrella group of projects supported by the Dutch government.
East African Common Market Scorecard 2016: tracking EAC compliance in the movement of capital, services and goods (EABC)
The East African Common Market Scorecard initiative contributes to the implementation of the Common Market by allowing Partner States to track their progress in fulfilling their commitments to liberalization under the Common Market Protocol. The Scorecard examines selected commitments made by Partner States, outlines progress in removing East African legislative and regulatory restrictions to complying with the Protocol, and recommends reform measures. In doing so, it allows Partner States to identify key areas for improvement and, along with the EAC Secretariat and development partners, chart a path to eliminate remaining barriers to a fuller regional market.
Movement of service providers in the EAC: legal analysis (tralac)
This paper assesses the implementation of the commitments made in these professional services plus educational services. The assessment will focus on policy and regulatory changes, and examine any implementation challenges. This will contribute to the on-going mode 4 negotiations and inform the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite and Continental Free Trade Area services negotiations. [The analyst: Viola Sawere]
Kenya: Flower export earnings up 18% (Bloomberg)
Kenya, which supplies more than a third of all cut flowers sold in Europe annually, said profit from stem shipments advanced 18% in the first nine months of the year as volumes exported climbed. Earnings rose to 53.9 billion shillings ($529.7m), the National Bureau of Statistics said on its website Wednesday. The volume exported increased 6.5% from a year earlier to 96,788 metric tons, it said.
Bank of Tanzania to use tanzanite to boost reserves, snubs ‘volatile’ gold (IPPMedia)
The government, facing pressure on its foreign currency reserves due to ongoing public infrastructure funding programmes, is now considering the possibility of storing tanzanite gemstones in its central bank vaults to boost its kitty. The Minister for Finance and Planning, Dr Philip Mpango, told parliament here yesterday that this follows the effective abandonment of previous plans to re-introduce the purchase of gold bullion to diversify the BoT’s reserves.
Foundations of structured trade finance: book launch (Afreximbank)
The urgent need for Africa to focus on the economic returns of knowledge and the role of trade in the development process were highlighted yesterday as the book, Foundations of Structured Trade Finance, written by Dr. Benedict Oramah (President of the African Export-Import Bank), was launched in Lagos. “While South East Asian economies realized back in the 1970s that it was a knowledge economy that could be trade–led and that it was a trade-led economy that could innovate and be competitive, African economies lost focus, consumed by commodity illusion and defensive import substitution strategies,” he lamented. Consequently, Africa, which was well ahead of developing Asia, including China, in the 1960s and early 1970s in terms of per capita income, size of exports, share of global trade and economic growth rates, was swiftly overtaken by Asia in the 1980s, he pointed out. It was to address that challenge that he had written the book, to share knowledge about the innovative approach that made it possible to lend into areas previously considered risky by splitting the risks in trade transactions and allocating them to parties best able to bear them. [At the book launch: Dangote, Duke lament difficult intra-African trade]
EAC, CUTS International Geneva to enhance cooperation (EAC)
The two officials explored further areas of cooperation, alongside the EAC Geneva Trade and Climate Change Forum. Currently CUTS runs a bi-monthly forums of East African trade negotiators to support their informed and concerted participation on issues of their interest in WTO debates. Besides CUTS’ technical analysis and on-demand papers, negotiators benefit from country updates providing a snapshot of the current on the ground realities of the issue. CUTS also intend to establish the EAC Climate Change Forum for regular online meetings of East African Climate Change negotiators. Each meeting will be serviced by a technical paper and country updates. It is intended that once a year, climate negotiators will meet with trade delegates of the EAC Geneva Forum for a Trade and Climate Change Coordination Forum.
The international trade consequences of climate change (pdf, OECD)
The literature on trade has focused mostly on the trade consequences of climate change mitigation policies or on the effects on greenhouse gas emissions of trade policies. Dedicated analyses that look at the long-term impacts of climate change on international trade are still very scarce. This paper provides an analysis of how climate change damages will affect international trade in the coming decades and how international trade can help limit the costs of climate change. It analyses the impacts of climate change on trade considering both direct effects on infrastructure and transport routes and the indirect impacts resulting from changes in endowments and production.
Enhancing the climate resilience of Africa’s infrastructure: the roads and bridges sector (World Bank)
The goal of this study is first to quantify the cost of climate change to the African roads sector, and second to assist decision makers in identifying the most cost-effective adaptation approach. To this end, the study uses detailed analysis of climate impacts for each of a wide array of possible future climates, combined with decision analysis techniques, to identify how to maximize the cost-effectiveness of investing in infrastructure resilience plans in advance of knowing how the future climate will unfold. [Modernizing African meteorological services to build climate resilience]
New OECD-UNDP report examines progress: is development co-operation becoming more effective?
Drawing on record participation, both in terms of numbers and diversity of stakeholders, the report covers 89% of development co-operation programmed for the 81 low and middle-income countries and territories that participated in the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation’s Second Monitoring Round (2015-2016). The report notes the need to adapt the modalities and norms of co-operation to the changing face of development. Countries are seeing an increase in the quantity and diversity of private and public resources available, including domestic and private finance. Development co-operation can act as a catalyst for other flows, while providing critical finance for the countries most in need. [Note: country-level reports are available for 14 African countries]
ICC Commission report: Financial institutions and international arbitration
Arbitration, with its flexibility and worldwide enforcement dimension, has the potential to become the preferred alternative dispute resolution method for the world’s corporate and investment banks. A new report, released by the International Chamber of Commerce, offers an unprecedented insight into the advantages of arbitrating banking disputes and gives an overview of perceptions and experiences financial institutions have with international arbitration. The Report unveils findings based on information collected on a wide range of banking and financial sectors and products - spanning all corporate and investment banking financing, capital markets, asset management and advisory mandate fields - and in-depth interviews conducted with over 50 leading financial institutions. [India to boycott “legally untenable” Court of Arbitration set up by World Bank]
Call for Papers: Fifth Congress of African Economists (Department of Economics Affairs, AU)
The theme of the fifth edition of the AEC: “Growth, jobs and social cohesion in Africa” will offer an opportunity to consider the following sub-themes: (i) The sources of growth; (ii) the distribution of the fruits of growth; (iii) growth and exogenous shocks; (iv) financing growth; (v) the problem of unemployment in Africa; (vi) growth and integration in Africa; (vii) how to reduce unemployment in Africa?; (viii) partnership and growth; (ix) country experiences; (x) regional and world experiences; (xi) coordination experience of monetary and fiscal policies in times of crisis; (xii) monetary and fiscal policy: What options to boost growth and create employment? Further details, deadlines are available here.
Witney Schneidman: Trump and Africa (Brookings)
Rwanda–DRC launch Simplified Trade Regime programme (COMESA)
Hedge funds line up against Mozambique in tuna bond battle (Bloomberg)
Africa presents united front and calls for action at COP22 (AfDB)
Sugar, dairy and staple grains push food price index up by 0.7% cent in October (UN)
ECOWAS Commission delegation visits Arab Bank For Economic Development in Africa
SAPP orders SADC to fix different energy regulations (ESI Africa)
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