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tralac’s Daily News selection
The selection: Tuesday, 26 January 2016
2016 at a glance: event calendars from the UNECA, COMESA Business Council, China's G20 Presidency
Forthcoming international conferences: Reconciling trade and local content development (Mexico City, 27-28 January), Investing in African Mining Indaba 2016 (Cape Town, 8-11 February 8-11)
US Secretary of Commerce visits Nigeria to explore business opportunities (Premium Times)
The US Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker, arrived Lagos on Monday as the head of a fact-finding mission to Nigeria on Doing Business in Africa. Mrs Pritzker, who is the chair of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa, was accompanied by senior U.S. business executives. The council was formed to advise President Barack Obama on ways to strengthen commercial engagement between the United States and Africa. A statement from the US Embassy in Abuja said the trip would provide an opportunity for the council members to gather facts about the commercial opportunities and challenges in Nigeria. At the end of the visit, the council, which would also visit Rwanda, is expected to “report back to President Obama with strong and actionable recommendations, and develop policy ideas that will benefit both countries and raise our commercial relationship to the next level”. [US to Nigeria: 'Your forex is creating trade barriers between us' (AFKInsider)]
Related: President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa: www, the 19 November 2015 meeting: recommendations
ICC G20 Business Scorecard (International Chamber of Commerce)
The fifth edition examines a total of 25 business priorities developed during the 2015 Turkish B20 cycle and rates G20 responsiveness across seven policy areas. This year's score of 2.0 out of 3.0, translates to an assessment of "Fair". ICC Secretary General John Danilovich said: "The score is a slight decrease from the Brisbane and St. Petersburg Summits' scores of 2.1 reflecting our disappointment in G20 leadership on the trade agenda." The Scorecard suggests that passive wording used in the Antalya Communiqué amounted to a missed opportunity to amplify both the urgency of advancing the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement to implementation and the importance of TFA progress to adding US$1 trillion to global GDP and 18 million jobs, primarily in emerging markets. [Download the executive summary, full report]
International Chamber of Commerce and UNCTAD pledge to work together on 2030 Development Agenda
Building on the success of the widely adopted UNCTAD/ICC Rules for Multimodal Transport Documents, Dr. Kituyi and Mr. Danilovich said that their organizations shared a mutual interest and expertise in developing standards for use in international trade. Accordingly, the organizations will collaborate in supporting countries wishing to ratify and implement the World Trade Organization's Trade Facilitation Agreement, which aims to cut red tape and the cost of cross-border trade.
UNCTAD Trade and Development Board, Executive Session opens in Geneva
Namibia and Rand CMA: Delinking not in Namibia's best interest - Shiimi (The Namibian)
Delinking from the South African rand will not be in Namibia's best interest, central bank governor Ipumpu Shiimi has said. Speaking in an interview, he said Namibia continues to benefit from this arrangement and breaking the link between the two currencies will not be in the best interest of the country. Shiimi said the developments affecting the rand would have affected the Namibia dollar more or less in the same way, if the Namibia dollar was delinked. Namibia is paid over N$200 million per annum by South Africa as part of the currency arrangement.
Namibia: Livestock producers on edge over SA export negotiations (New Era)
Namibia’s stakeholders in the N$2bn a year livestock export industry are on the edges of their seats in anticipation of the outcome of the latest round of negotiations regarding the South African authorities’ intent to push through with animal health requirements for Namibian livestock imports. If implemented, these requirements could bring the local industry to its knees.Meat Board General Manager, Paul Strydom, has confirmed to Farmers Forum that as coordinator of the negotiations, the Meat Board met the deadline of January 8 to answer South Africa on the various issues the neighbouring country is basing its proposed new livestock imports from Namibia. “We have not received any feedback to date, but expect an announcement by the SA authorities soon. For now, we have to once again sit and wait,” Strydom says.
EAC stock markets integration delay costing region – experts (New Times)
Regional capital markets officials under the East Africa Stock Exchanges Association (EASEA) were in agreement that delaying the process was costing the region more foreign capital investments needed to finance the major infrastructure projects, and called for all effort to be made to complete the exercise. The officials from all the five East Africa Community member states, who were attending the 26th consultative meeting of EASEA in Kigali last week agreed on a roadmap harmonisation of the stock markets “to create strong stock markets”. The process of integrating the region’s stock exchange markets has been dragging on for about four years now.
What was agreed on: Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania agreed to put in place strategic plans, speedup training programmes, and support the establishment of a harmonised legal framework. All these are expected to be completed within one month. Regional awareness campaign on electronic linkages for trading and depository infrastructures, and enhancing capacity through SITI training programmes remain high on agenda this year. Partner states agreed to harmonise broker back office standards, and inter-depository transfers procedures, among other things.
West African Monetary Zone: selected updates
Common prudential norms for six-member monetary zone (Graphic)
Central banks in the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) have made significant progress towards adopting the same policies and supervisory approaches in their oversight responsibilities on banks. They have all adopted the risk-based supervision approach where more resources are focused on the systemically important banks, those whose failure could affect the entire banking system. These harmonised positions came about as a result of the establishment of the College of Supervisors for the WAMZ region. It was set up around 2008 after the financial crisis that hit the world and the expansion of especially Nigerian banks to other parts of West Africa. Their ultimate goal is to achieve harmonised financial systems regulatory and supervisory laws. This will assist in the establishment of a single Central Bank for West Africa as a precondition for the introduction of a single currency.
Related: Ghana hosts West Africa Monetary Zone Convergence Council, BoG downplays cedi devaluation report (Pulse)
The digital transformation of logistics: threat and opportunity (WEF)
Over the next few years, the race to build a dominant global platform will transform the customer’s experience of logistics and will be the central issue in determining which enterprises will be the winners and losers in a truly digital logistics industry. With the logistics industry suffering from some very significant inefficiencies – for instance, 50% of trucks travel empty on their return journey after making a delivery – digital transformation can also bring important social and environmental benefits by increasing efficiency and cutting down energy consumption and emissions. Our analysis indicates that there is $1.5 trillion of value at stake for logistics players and a further $2.4 trillion worth of societal benefits as a result of digital transformation of the industry up until 2025.
Related: Alpha Condé (President of Guinea): 'How the technology revolution will transform Africa' (WEF), Is Rwanda ready for the anticipated Fourth Industrial Revolution? (New Times), India: Navigating the fourth industrial revolution (Livemint), JB Cronje: ‘The digital economy and policy implications for trade’ (tralac), Stark choice - innovate and prosper or stagnate and shrink (New Times)
India eyes joint ventures in bid to double exports to Kenya (Daily Nation)
India's plan is part of a two-decade strategy to support agro-processing industries to venture into the export market. The move, which falls under India's Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda), has helped India to commercialise its agricultural activities, making it the largest milk producer in the world and the third largest food producer after America and China. Interestingly, no Kenya government officials attended the event that apparently was meant to mark India's aggressive foray into Kenya. India exports goods worth Sh116bn annually to Kenya's Sh6bn exports to the Asian country. Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry chairman Mr Kiprono Kittony called for implementation of eight trade pacts signed between the chamber and its Indian counterpart saying value-addition partnerships would greatly ease trade imbalance between the two countries. [Zambian Tourism Board eyes India market (Daily Mail)]
Why Kenya is likely to avoid China’s economic turmoil (Daily Nation)
Central Bank of Kenya governor Dr Patrick Njoroge says that Kenya has diversified trade partners and this would shield it from China’s problems. “Somehow there’s a lot of turmoil out there and markets are trying to digest the bad news about the economic outlook but we have differentiated ourselves quite well,” the CBK boss told journalists at a press briefing on Thursday.
Zimbabwe: Haulage trucks face ban (The Chronicle)
The government is working on mechanisms to ban haulage trucks from transporting heavy goods on the country’s roads, as it adopts a double-pronged approach to protect the country’s roads and empower the National Railways of Zimbabwe. Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister, Joram Gumbo, said once implemented, the development would go a long way in protecting the country’s roads and reviving the fortunes of NRZ. He said consultations were currently underway, adding that a legal position would be announced in due course. “The ministry notes the appeal from the railways stakeholders to ring fence some products to rail,” he said. [The challenges of industrial development policy design in a post-liberalisation era (tralac)]
Feeding Africa: AfDB meets with Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (AfDB)
"New Deal for Energy": a big deal for Africa, off-grid (HuffPost Impact)
Kenya: Fresh exports get boost as Kephis to monitor EU sales (Business Daily)
Kenya’s fresh produce will access the lucrative EU market with more ease following the re-accreditation of the national laboratory for testing conformity on pesticide residue levels. The Kenya Plant Inspectorate Service (Kephis) laboratory has been re-accredited by the South African National Accreditation Service to certify the horticultural produce exported to Europe meets the set international standards. The laboratory had faced some challenges with the testing of produce on failing to meet the set standard in August last year, a move that nearly locked horticultural produce from Kenya to the EU market.
Tweet from @IndustryKE: the value of tea exports increased by 41.9% in the 4 months to last October compared to a similar period in previous year
Kenya: Standards agency says new rules to curb fake goods (Daily Nation)
Travelport to open Nairobi call centre hub for Africa operations (Business Daily)
Adewale Fayemi: 'Uganda’s oil still competitive despite global oil price plunge' (Daily Monitor)
Strengths, weaknesses of East Africa’s creative economy (Daily Monitor)
Anabel Gonzalez: 'Doing business in Kazakhstan: lessons learned from the 2016 top reformer' (World Bank)
We can see that by any measure, Kazakhstan had an excellent year for private sector reforms. Kazakhstan was recognized with positive reforms in seven of ten topics, the most of any country in the world in 2016 while also improving by 3.34 percent in the Distance to the Frontier, also the greatest increase of any country in 2016. Topping it off, Kazakhstan broke into the top 50 for the first time, earning 41st place in the 2016 report. Clearly there is much that can be learned in how Kazakhstan achieved these impressive results. [The author is senior director, World Bank Group Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice]
OECD's 'Better Policies Series' Latin America report: media statement, report
France spells out a comprehensive trade strategy (Borderlex)
Ambassador Michael Froman’s address at the University of Warsaw (USTR)
EITI gets new Chair, as Clare Short prepares to step down next month (Premium Times)
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