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SA needs to refocus G20 on main global issues – Kganyago (IOL)
South African Reserve Bank (SARB) Governor Lesetja Kganyago has lamented the extension of the G20 working groups without necessarily dealing with the main agenda for which the bloc was created. Speaking late last week at the European Central Bank’s Annual Forum on Central Banking in Sintra, Portugal, Kganyago said the G20 had now become a “big industry” with think-tanks for youth, women, labour ministers, and its agenda keeps on adding up while nothing gets dropped.
“The stuff that the G20 was [founded] to deal with, we still have to deal with those… And yet, there is more and more added to the agenda. And I was thinking about the South African agenda as we go into 2025. If the work of the G20 is going to be reduced to negotiating a communiqué, we have a problem,” Kganyago said. “We are not dealing with global issues that are confronting us. And any country could find one paragraph in the communiqué that they do not like, and we would have no communiqué.”
IMF Executive Board Concludes 2024 Article IV Consultation with Libya (IMF)
In 2023, real GDP is estimated to have expanded by 10 percent, largely owing to a rebound from the oil production stoppages of 2022. The current account surplus declined, in line with the fall in oil prices, but reserves remained at a comfortable level. Government revenues also declined, despite the boost in oil production.
The outlook continues to be dominated by the dynamics of hydrocarbon production. The baseline projection is for declining fiscal and external balances over the coming years, in line with a projected decline in global oil prices. The CBL is expected to maintain the current stock of international reserves, and the country will continue to have no public debt as conventionally understood. However, the balance of risks is tilted to the downside, and uncertainty remains high due to the continuing political stalemate and possible geopolitical spillovers.
Nigeria Ranks Fourth in Intra-Africa Trade, Following South Africa, Cote d’Ivoire, and Egypt (REGTECH AFRICA)
Nigeria has secured the position of the fourth-largest contributor to intra-Africa trade in 2023, trailing behind South Africa, Cote d’Ivoire, and Egypt, according to a report by the African Export-Import Bank. The Africa Trade Report 2024, titled “Climate Implications of the AfCFTA Implementation,” revealed that Nigeria’s intra-Africa trade decreased by 2.1% in 2023, falling to $8 billion from $8.2 billion in the previous year. This decline led to a marginal reduction in Nigeria’s share of total intra-African trade, which dropped from 4.4% in 2022 to about 4.2% in 2023. Despite this, Nigeria remained the fourth-largest intra-African trading nation. Approximately 5.1% of Nigeria’s exports were directed to African countries, with Cote d’Ivoire, South Africa, and Senegal being the top three destinations for Nigerian exports within the continent. Nigeria’s imports from the rest of Africa remained relatively low, accounting for less than 2.9% of its total imports.
The report also warned that Nigeria faces the risk of losing $30 billion from its gross domestic product due to divestment from fossil fuels. With growing concerns about climate change and the need to reduce fossil fuel usage, Afreximbank expressed worry about the impact, as many African countries depend on fossil fuel sources for basic energy needs and export revenue.
“For major oil-exporting countries, including Algeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, and the Congo Republic, fossil fuels represent the main source of export earnings and fiscal revenues, job creation, power generation, and powering fossil-intensive industries. For instance, divesting from fossil fuels could reduce GDP by as much as $30 billion in Nigeria, $22 billion in Algeria, $19.3 billion in Angola, and $190 billion for the continent as a whole,” the report stated.
Mwinyi points path for SADC to increase sugar production (Tanzania Daily News)
Zanzibar President Dr Hussein Mwinyi has advised Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries to utilise the opportunities available in the bloc, to create conducive investment environment that heightens sugar production. Opening the annual conference for sugar producers from SADC countries in Zanzibar on Wednesday, Dr Mwinyi explained that creating a better environment including removing obstacles, will enable expansion of internal market within the bloc and open more opportunities for sugar trade in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and the World in general. The 2024 conference theme is “Towards a Competitive Sugar Industry in Africa,” and the Zanzibar President commended SADC partner states for developing the sugar industry through the official procedures reflected in ‘SADC Trade Protocol.”
He said that the theme calls on governments to set up and improve the investment environment, so that the industry can be competitive and bring more benefits to the people. “In achieving our objectives, we have to face challenges such as competition in the global market, quality, subsidies, and the difficulty in obtaining investment capital for the production of sugar.”
SADC Industrialisation Week ‘launch pad for growth’ (The Herald)
Former Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) president, Sifelani Jabangwe, says the upcoming SADC Industrialisation Week (SIW) presents an excellent opportunity and platform for local companies to create avenues for growth and expansion into the region. This comes as African countries, in January 2021, operationalised the African Continental Free Trade Area, a 55-national trade bloc with about 1,3 billion consumers and a gross domestic product of US$3,3 trillion. The world’s biggest single market is expected to incrementally collapse all barriers to trade on the African continent. The SIW is scheduled to run from July 28 to August 2, 2024, under the theme “Promoting Innovation to Unlock Opportunities for Sustainable Economic Growth and Development Towards an Industrialised SADC”.
SIW is an annual public-private engagement platform designed to foster new opportunities for intra-African trade, develop cross-border value chains, and identify investment opportunities in the SADC region. A key objective of the SIW is to promote the SADC Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap (2025-2063) (SISR) to ensure wider understanding and acceptability among the SADC community members, including Governments, members of the public, private sector, academia, research institutions and think tanks.
The ECOWAS Commission, in close collaboration with the Secretariat of the Mano River Union (MRU) held the 7th Joint Technical Steering Committee Meeting of the Multinational: Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Liberia Road Development & Transport Facilitation Programme within the Mano River Union (MRU) in Monrovia, Liberia from July 9 to 10, 2024. The 2-day meeting brought together the project Member Countries of Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Liberia, the ECOWAS Commission, the Secretariat of the Mano River Union and the African Development Bank (AfDB), to review the progress of the project implementation, discuss solutions to constraints and challenges, and agree on ways to accelerate the project.
In her opening remarks, H.E. Madam Josephine Nkrumah, the Resident Representative of the President of the ECOWAS Commission in Liberia, highlighted that as at today, considerable progress has also been made on the design of the two (2) Joint Border Posts (JPBs) at Prollo and Gbaplue, and the construction of a Bridge over Cavalla River, which are the key components being implemented by the ECOWAS Commission. On the Bridge component, the contract for the works has been awarded and physical works is expected to commence in September 2024 with completion period of 24 months.
“This regional project will no doubt benefit road users, transporters, farmers, the programme area inhabitants and especially the disadvantaged groups (women and children), which constitute the greater majority in the programme area.” She added
The ECOWAS Commission has concluded a three-day technical review of a draft Interim report for the Trade and Transport Facilitation Study of the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Highway Development Project, which is expected to culminate in a framework that will allow the corridor highway to be operated under a single customs regime with no borders, no stopping of travellers or traders at borders to stamp passports, etc. Also, the framework will have corridor wide automated third-party insurance scheme “ECOWAS Brown Card” for cross border vehicles.
Acting Director of Transport for ECOWAS, Mr. Chris Appiah, said “the corridor Treaty signed by the Heads of State and Government of the five Corridor Countries conveyed their vision to transform the corridor into an economic development corridor. This means the corridor highway will not only facilitate transportation but help unearth major economic activities in manufacturing, industrialization, tourism, agriculture, etc, around the corridor and boost cross border trade. To agree on the perfect framework to enable this happen, the Commission brought together experts from all five (5) Corridor Member Countries, Africa Development Bank, the Directorates of Trade, Customs, immigration, and free movement of the ECOWAS Commission as well as other Development Partners to make sure that all the recommendations the consultant will be making to ensure free movement of goods, services, persons and transport are practical and align with international best practices.”
How digitalization is transforming the creative economy (UNCTAD)
The creative economy includes audiovisual products, design, media, music, performing arts, publishing and visual arts. An evolving concept by nature, it involves goods and services based on creativity and intellectual capital as primary inputs. With exports of these products growing strongly in recent years, robust regulatory frameworks are necessary to ensure technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) benefit everyone and foster a competitive and sustainable creative economy. That’s the main message from the Creative Economy Outlook 2024 released by UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
In 2022, global exports of creative services surged to $1.4 trillion, while creative goods totalled $713 billion, up by 29% and 19%, respectively, from 2017. Developing economies primarily export creative goods, while developed ones account for 80% of creative services exports. However, the gap in the latter has slowly decreased over the past decade, with the share of developing countries doubling to 20% between 2010 and 2022. By product group, the most exported creative services in 2022 were software services (41.3%) and research and development (30.7%), followed by advertising, market research, and architecture (15.5%), audiovisual services (7.9%), information services (4%), and cultural, recreational, and heritage services (0.6%).
Africa-Caribbean trade poised to hit $1.8 billion by 2028 (The Independent Uganda)
Trade between Africa and the Caribbean could soar to $1.8 billion annually by 2028, provided that value addition, trade facilitation, and enhanced logistics are prioritized, according to new research from the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the African Export-Import Bank Currently, bilateral trade in goods between the two regions stands at $729 million.
These preliminary findings, unveiled in Nassau, Bahamas, during the launch of the ITC-Afreximbank ‘Strengthening AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment’ project, coincided with the 31st Afreximbank Annual Meetings and the third AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF). The research indicates that the travel and transport sectors offer the greatest potential for growth, accounting for two-thirds of the potential ‘services trade’ between Africa and the Caribbean.
Prof. Benedict Oramah, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank, commented on the findings: “The report confirms the vast Africa-Caribbean trade and investment opportunities that remain untapped. It provides strong validation of Afreximbank’s Caribbean Strategy. With a project pipeline of $2.5 billion and an investment pipeline worth $1.5 billion, the Bank has demonstrated its commitment to realizing opportunities across the two regions. The productive collaboration between Afreximbank and ITC aims to bridge the knowledge gap and build capacity among small and medium-sized enterprises, which are critical for the growth of Africa-Caribbean trade and investment.”
Quick links
Increase exports to actualise budget aspirations (New Vision)
Why is China choosing Gulf, Russia over Africa for crude oil supplies? (South China Morning Post)
Establishment of carbon borders not supported by climate finance commitments (Engineering News)
WWF chief: Firms can cut value chain emissions and use the market (Context)
