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tralac’s Daily News Selection
The selection: Thursday, 26 May 2016
Today: the AfDB’s Annual Civil Society Forum, EAC Budget Speech 2016/2017
Forthcoming SADC Ministerial workshops: the energy and water crisis (20 June), illegal trade in wildlife (8 July)
Tanzania: International Forum for Investments (12-14 July, Dar es Salaam)
India will host the 2017 AfDB Annual Meetings, Korea will host the 2018 Annual Meetings
Accelerating the Implementation of AfDB's Ten Year Strategy: special panel members, TOR (AfDB)
The Panel has been convened to assist the Bank and provide recommendations on how to implement the High 5 Priorities. The panel is co-chaired by Kofi Annan, Chair of the Africa Progress Panel, and Horst Kohler, Former Federal President of Germany. Panel members are K.Y. Amoako, Paul Collier, Jay Ireland, Justin Lin, Trevor Manuel, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Mary Robinson, Ismail Serageldin, Joseph Stiglitz, Lars Thunell. Over the next 10 months, the panel will meet three additional times to discuss and guide the Bank on issues in areas including: political will and political economy reform, financing requirements, partnerships, and making the Bank fit for purpose.
ECOWAS at 40: an assessment of the progress made towards regional integration in West Africa (UNECA)
This report presents the study in seven parts. The first presents the theoretical underpinnings and practical reasons for West African integration. The second describes the establishment of ECOWAS and its subsequent development. The third reviews the major common sectoral policies, and examines the choices of macroeconomic harmonisation measures and convergence criteria. The fourth assesses ECOWAS sectoral policies on regional integration and on the economic and social development of Member States. The fifth examines the various steps of the sub-regional integration process and their contribution to continental integration, as well as the approach to designing a Composite Regional Integration Index (CRII). The sixth part analyses the critical challenges faced by ECOWAS. The study concludes with recommendations for greater efficiency in the march towards regional integration and an ECOWAS contribution to continental integration as advocated by the African Union. [Download, pdf]
Buhari backs free trade relations with ECOWAS countries (Today)
As part of measures to promote healthy trade relations between Nigeria and other countries within the Economic Community of West African States region, President Muhammadu Buhari has given approval for the establishment of a national single window for easy movement of goods along the ECOWAS trade corridors. Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi who stated this at the opening ceremony of the Fifth Conference of Borderless Alliance held in Cotonou, Benin Republic, emphasised that President Buhari believes that countries within the West African sub-region have a lot to gain from operating a national single window for easy movement of goods along border corridors.
Nigeria to sign visa-free pact with 8 countries (Vanguard)
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, says plans have been concluded to sign visa-free pacts with a bloc of eight African countries to promote economic partnership on the continent. The minister, who did not disclose the names of the countries making up the bloc, noted with concern that trading among African countries had been very low. "We want to start with about eight countries or see if they come up as a group of eight countries. At the presidential level, they agreed to that, and signed up to free movement. "If we can achieve that within a year, then other countries may want to join and we believe this is a better way to go than institutional ECOWAS etc, as countries take so long to ratify agreements. We believe we can just start off, eight countries and they agree among themselves, then others will come in," he said.
African Economic Integration: a report of the Building Bridges Programme (Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice, UCT)
This report provides an overview of the events convened in the first Building Bridges programme cycle, focused on the theme of African economic integration, attended by 140 participants from over 20 African countries, and draws out some of the key threads from these conversations, informed by background think pieces, presentations, workshop reports and transcripts.
AfDB Group Annual Report 2015
Regional integration: In 2015, total approvals for regional (multinational) operations amounted to UA 1.44bn, a 34% increase from the 2014 approvals of UA 1.08 billion. Of the total regional approvals, the largest share (40.2%) was allocated to transport. This was followed by the finance sector (25.3%) for lines of credit and trade finance, and the energy sector (23.8%), with smaller shares for multi-sector operations, agricultural, social, and communications sectors. [Download, pdf]
Regional approaches to trade facilitation (UNCTAD)
The relationship between trade facilitation and regional integration is not always straightforward. On the one hand, the growth of regional trade agreements can lead to convoluted "spaghetti bowls." This can be an unwelcome development in the sense that it may create more compliance costs for exporters. Firms may face more paperwork in the form of certificates of origin to qualify for preferential market access. On the other hand, the cooperation required among countries to implement trade facilitation measures can itself help drive regional integration. Poor trade facilitation partly explains why only 14% of total African trade is intra-regional, compared to 50% for Asia and 70% for Europe. In fact, when shipping goods between two countries in West Africa, it's often cheaper to ship them through the Netherlands than directly from one country to the other.
This has serious consequences for competitiveness: without regional markets, African firms cannot capitalize on economies of scale and tend to export fewer capital-intensive goods. Without regional markets, these firms also have fewer ways to access and climb global value chains. And less competition means less quality and higher prices for consumers. By promoting trade facilitation at the regional level, developing countries, particularly those in Africa, can encourage new regional markets. [Joakim Reiter, Deputy Secretary-General, UNCTAD] [Rival trade pacts to drive growth in ASEAN countries: report (GB Times)]
Tanzania in talks with EAC to scrap tariff barriers on milk exports (IPPMedia)
The Tanzania Dairy Board is holding talks with its counterparts in other EAC member states aimed at convincing them to scrap tariff barriers on exports of milk from Tanzania, officials have said. TDB acting registrar Nelson Kilongozi, said removal of the tariff barriers would expand Tanzania’s dairy products market in the other EAC members of Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.
SA-EU trade policy updates (Business Day)
The Cabinet has approved the economic partnership agreement between the Southern African Development Community and the European Union, which will now be submitted to Parliament for ratification, Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe said on Thursday. SA had also negotiated a bilateral protocol on geographic indicators with the EU, where 102 wine names and three agricultural products — rooibos, honeybush and Karoo lamb — would be protected.
WTO members debate appointment/reappointment of Appellate Body members (WTO)
ICC welcomes new WTO report on trade finance and SMEs
The International Chamber of Commerce has welcomed a new WTO report which examines the urgent need to address the trade finance gap for small- and medium-sized enterprises. Responding to Mr Azevedo’s call to action, ICC Secretary General John Danilovich said: “Access to trade finance is now seen as the single biggest barrier to SME growth. A longstanding partner of the WTO, ICC is taking urgent action to address this problem - including through the ICC Academy and our Banking Commission.”
Dangote contributes 53% of govt revenue in mineral resources sector (Vanguard)
Nigeria: Stocks rise, Naira falls to N350/$ as investors await flexible forex policy (ThisDay)
Harare bond notes stand in for dollars (Business Day)
Zimbabwe: Diaspora, NGO remittances decline 16% (The Herald)
Nam business climate deteriorating (The Namibian)
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