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tralac’s Daily News Selection
The selection: Thursday, 7 April 2016
tralac’s Annual Conference started today in Swakopmund: all the downloads
The EU-AU College-to-College meeting is being held today in Addis: a commentary by Jean-Claude Juncker, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma 'EU–Africa: a common future'
Tomorrow in Gaborone: SADC's candidate for AUC Chairperson, Dr Pelonomi Venson-Motoi, will detail her candidacy
The G20 launches Global Platform on Inclusive Business
Richard Sezibera: 'Integration is not the work of an individual; it needs joint action' (The EastAfrican)
Any challenges?: The only strategic threat I see is the lack of focus or a narrow focus on nationalistic agendas. Domestication of decisions made at the regional level is sometimes slow. This has delayed the full implementation of the Common Market Protocol. But as the integration agenda deepens, the EAC will have to design mechanisms for faster, cost-effective decision making, pool partner states’ sovereignty into central entities with the capacity to drive the agenda, and agree on a sustainable financing mechanism.
Valentine Rugwabiza: 'EAC One Network Area has potential to transform Africa' (The EastAfrican)
Introduced in October 2014, the One Network Area aims to harmonise tariffs on mobile voice calls, SMS and data transmission within the EAC. Today, roaming charges between Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda have been removed, making all mobile calls between the three countries local. This has led to a minimum 400% increase in the volume of calls — a direct benefit to EAC citizens and African businesses operating across the region’s borders. Previously, making calls across the EAC was more expensive than calling Europe, America or Asia. The second phase of the ONA initiative is underway, with telecom operators revising SMS and data charges downwards. Rwanda began this process in August 2015, and the idea is to have a truly integrated regional bloc with all mobile telephony barriers removed. [The author is Rwanda’s Minister for East African Community]
Tanzania: Govt to double development spending, cut aid dependence (IPPMedia)
The Minister for Finance and Planning, Philip Mpango, yesterday outlined government plans to spend a total of 29.539 trillion/- in its coming annual budget, of which 11.82trn/- will be allocated to development projects - an unprecedented 40.02% of the total budget. Up to 75% of the funds to be set aside for development expenditure will be financed by domestic sources, thanks to a marked improvement in the government’s tax collection efforts through the Tanzania Revenue Authority, plus a raft of ongoing public cost-cutting measures. [World Bank expert faults Tanzania exports terrain]
Madagascar: the use of detailed statistical data in customs reform (World Bank)
Using original customs data, this paper aims to identify, in Madagascar, some high-risk products and high-risk operators (importers and brokers). The proposed method is complementary to risk analysis methods based on compliance. A two-step procedure is adopted. Based on discrepancies in trade statistics (mirror statistics), the paper presents products or sectors in which customs fraud is deemed to be significant. A quantification exercise of customs losses is provided. Then, through the use of highly disaggregated customs data, high-risk operators (importers and brokers) are identified. Despite the fact the methodology is straightforward, to our knowledge there is hardly any paper using this approach (at the importer/broker level) due to the fact that it is usually difficult to get access to such information.
The paper demonstrates how useful such detailed customs data can be and should convince the Head of Customs and/or Ministers of Finance to give access to them to researchers, since they can be used for an operational use. For researchers, it enables to identify some fraud techniques and collusive practices. The use of export data provided by exporting countries allows us to compute for each sector/product the mirror gap. The mirror gap is, for each product/sector, defined as the difference between export X to Madagascar reported by the exporting country and import M from the exporting country as reported by Madagascar customs. Export data are downloaded via the United Nations platform COMTRADE. [The authors: Cyril Romain Chalendard, Gael Raballand, Antsa Rakotoarisoa] [Madagascar: Economic management reform support programme appraisal report (AfDB)]
Zimbabwe to protect local industry (Financial Gazette)
Zimbabwe's Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, says government will protect critical industrial sectors from cheap imports, as the country struggles to stem de-industrialisation, which has undermined the economy and worsened a liquidity crunch. Speaking at a conference for on procurement organised by Buy Zimbabwe a day after Tata sought government protection in London after running into problems with imports, Chinamasa said industries with the potential to expand into the region would be protected from foreign competition. He, however, said local companies had to demonstrate their capacity to produce fairly priced, high quality goods before approaching government for protection. [EALA lawmakers challenge Rwandans on competitiveness (New Times)]
Ethiopian parliament ratifies bill to join regional insurance agency
The Ethiopian national parliament on Wednesday ratified a draft bill allowing Ethiopia to join the African Trade Insurance Agency. The African Development Bank provided a $7.5m loan for Ethiopia to join ATIA and to buy a share in the agency. With the stated amount, Ethiopia can buy 75 shares and become a shareholder in ATIA. Benin, Burundi, DRC, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia are shareholder in ATIA. ATI was launched in 2001 with the financial and technical support of the World Bank and the backing of seven African countries.
CEMAC: public financial management reforms (IMF)
The event, 4-6 April, took stock of public financial management reforms in the CEMAC countries since the adoption five years ago of regional directives that aim at modernizing and improving the management of public finance and strengthening the regional integration process. The IMF, in close coordination with the above-mentioned development partners, has provided extensive technical assistance to support the directives’ drafting and implementation, assisted by the generous support of Japan. Despite a wide diversity of national contexts and capacity level, significant results have been achieved at the country level. However, important challenges remain to be addressed.
West Africa: update on regional programme to harmonize and modernize living conditions surveys (World Bank)
Uganda: IMF review mission (IMF)
The mission welcomes the 2016/17 budget currently before parliament, which envisages a continued scaling-up of infrastructure investment while boosting domestic revenue by 0.5 percent of GDP, in line with the objective to raise Uganda’s revenue performance to levels observed in regional and other peers. The mission encourages the authorities to continue building capacity and controls to manage large public investment projects.
Mike Muller: 'Why water footprinting should be used with caution as a regulation tool' (IOL)
Southern African countries illustrate the complexities. They import more virtual water in food that has been produced elsewhere than they export. The region buys water-intensive cereals like rice from places like Thailand. Then it exports water-efficient crops like fruit and tobacco to the US, Europe and China that earn more dollars and create more jobs. But the virtual water in agricultural trade does not always flow from water-rich to water-poor countries. South Africa and Malawi have less water per person than most of their neighbours. Water footprinting would suggest that they should use less water for agriculture while other countries produce the region’s food.
Status of tobacco production and trade in Africa: factsheets (WHO/UNCTAD)
The lack of information on tobacco growing and tobacco trade has often been a concern for policy makers looking to advance tobacco control policies in the counties. This report will enable policy-makers and public health experts to develop a better understanding of the impact of trade liberalization on the domestic production and consumption of tobacco, but also of tobacco control measures such as WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC) in the African continent.
CAADP Partnership Platform: delegate briefing
The 12th CAADP PP (11-14 April in Accra) will help build a shared understanding of country and regional needs and expectations to roll out the Implementation Strategy and Road Map including launching efforts to form technical partnerships to align with and support implementation. CAADP faces new implementation challenges that will require evolving partnerships, including partnerships to integrate major initiatives and flagship efforts that are now in place making contributions to the areas and targets of the Malabo Declaration.
Wheat destined for Ethiopia's hungry stuck in port logjams (Bloomberg)
South Africa: Transnet ports task team in place for large grain imports (Business Day)
WTO's Trade Statistics and Outlook: update
Chart 5 illustrates growth in the dollar value of world commercial services exports since 2013 broken down by major services categories. Commercial services trade recorded a 6.4% year-on-year decline in 2015, although transport services registered a larger drop of nearly 10% as prices for sea shipment of dry bulk cargo fell to record lows last year. Other types of services exports, such as travel and other commercial services (a category that include financial services) saw smaller declines of around 5.5%.
STRI: The trade effect of regulatory differences (OECD)
Little systematic analysis of the economic effect of international regulatory cooperation has taken place hitherto. This study contributes to filling this gap by proposing a methodology for quantifying regulatory heterogeneity and demonstrating how it can be used for estimating the gains from regulatory cooperation, using the raw data contained in the Service Trade Restrictiveness (STRI) database. The study presents and describes bilateral indicators of regulatory heterogeneity and provides a first assessment of how regulatory differences contribute to trade costs in their own right. This aspect has become essential in evaluating the impact on 21st century trade agreements.
ADB announces increased support to Mozambique in 2016/2017 (Macauhub)
Angola to open loan talks with IMF (VOA)
No company leaving Ghana over ‘poor’ economy – Mahama (GhanaWeb)
President Uhuru Kenyatta: statement during the meeting with African Ambassadors accredited to Germany
Egypt: Currency uncertainties, falling demand drive business activity to 31-month low (Ahram)
South Africa: Politics hindering policy, says S&P (Business Day)
Emerging markets show more resilience to capital flow cycle (IMF)
Kenneth Rogoff: 'Anti-Trade America?' (Project Syndicate)
Russia Economic Report 35: the long journey to recovery (World Bank)
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