Since the first case of Covid-19 was reported in the Great Lakes region in mid-March 2020, small scale traders have been unable to cross borders as they have traditionally done either to buy or sell goods. The regional supply of primary agricultural commodities, most of which are traded under the Simplified Trade Regime (STR), especially foodstuffs from surplus to deficit areas has also been disrupted by the long delays at borders as truck drivers wait to be tested for Covid-19 before crossing. To support cross border trade, which is the lifeline of a huge community in the region, the Great Lakes Trade Facilitation Project (GLTFP) engaged stakeholders to come up with innovative means of trading across the borders of the three countries covered by the project. These innovations are meant to ease the movement of goods and avoid food shortages. The project region covers eastern DR Congo bordering western Rwanda and Uganda. Subsequently, a new concept of bulk-buying has been developed whereby goods are procured in large consignments in collaboration with suppliers across the borders. This ensures there is no mass movement of traders crossing the borders. Led by the Cross-Border Traders’ Associations (CBTA),  this concept has helped traders minimize the risk of COVID- 19 spread and allow safe trade. It consists of packaging similar goods from either side of the borders and moving them across the border using joint means of transport. This limits the movement of people to a strict minimum. Only the driver conveys the goods accompanied...

Dar es Salaam — The Southern African Development Community (Sadc) is gearing up for a full reopening of cross-border trading. This comes after experts in the region expressed satisfaction over the precautionary measures countries within the 16-member bloc have taken to prevent further spread of the novel coronavirus which causes Covid-19. The move comes after about 50 days when the body adopted its regional guidelines for harmonising and facilitating movement of critical goods and services across the region during the Covid-19 pandemic. The guidelines, adopted after a meeting of the Sadc Council of Ministers on April 6, 2020, aimed at limiting the spread of Covid-19 through transport across borders; facilitating the implementation of transport related national Covid-19 measures in cross-border transportation and facilitating flow of essential goods such as fuel, food and medicines. The guidelines also sought to limit unnecessary and mass movement of passengers across borders and harmonising and coordinating transport-related national Covid-19 policies, regulations and response measures. But with some countries - including Tanzania - making some important milestones in their fight against Covid-19, a virtual meeting of experts met yesterday to draw the roadmap for a meeting of Sadc Council of Ministers today (Thursday, May 28) resolved that some things must now change. "This meeting is being held in preparation for a meeting for the Sadc Council of Ministers. Key on the agenda that we will be presenting to the Sadc Council of Ministers is that some of the issues that we knew about Covid-19 must now...

Plans by the government to transport all transit cargo from the Port of Mombasa to Naivasha Inland Container Depot (ICD) through the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) effective June 1, have elicited protest from road transporters. They have termed the move as a deliberate plan by the government to “kill” the economy of Mombasa. Last Friday, the government directed that all transit cargo be moved and cleared at the Naivasha ICD for delivery to Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan. Kenya Transporters Association (KTA) chief executive Dennis Ombok accused the government of overlooking them during decision making on cargo transport matters. The government said in a statement on Friday 22, that some of the cargo will be moved on the old metre-gauge railway directly to Tororo in eastern Uganda or Kampala, while fuel will be transported by pipeline to Kisumu, Kenya and thereafter by water through Lake Victoria to Portbell in Luzira, Kampala or Jinja. Ombok dismissed the government’s claims that transporting cargo by railway is cheaper than using trucks. He made the remarks during a joint briefing convened by Muslim for Human Rights (Muhuri) in collaboration with Okoa Mombasa lobby group. Hidden costs “The government does not want to tell the public the hidden costs of using the SGR to ferry containers. If Uganda says its comfortable with cargo going by road, why is the government forcing this mandatory cargo transportation through SGR?” posed Ombok. Now, the Kenya Long Distance Truck Drivers Association (KLDTDA) has threatened to mobilise its members to...

The domino effect of the coronavirus pandemic will plunge many economies into recession and means the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) is now needed more than ever to ensure that member states are trading with each other and supporting one another at this time, according to Banji Fehintola, senior director and head of treasury at the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC). He says South Africa has a very important part to play. It is the most industrialised and diversified economy on the continent and is one of the only financial markets that is sound enough to be tapped for infrastructure projects. “Trade finance and infrastructure finance are incredibly important in the creation of growth across Africa. However, since the global financial crisis of 2008/2009, some global banks have retreated from emerging markets, including Africa. These means credit capacity from global banks for African Financial Institutions (FI) has reduced considerably, constraining their ability to serve clients’ needs,” he tells Fin24. No amount of policy change or cuts in taxes will truly make Africa competitive when the physical hinderances are ignored, according to Fehintola. He says the AfCFTA is not just a dream, but there is a long way still go before it becomes a tangible reality. The next phase comprises a new set of challenges as the ratifying countries commence implementing the AfCFTA with the goal of truly unlocking Africa’s potential through the free movement of goods, services and people. He points out that the elimination of tariff and nontariff barriers...

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the African Union Commission (AUC) launched the second Africa Regional Integration Index (ARII 2019). The Index includes a call to action to African economies to deepen their integration. The Africa Regional Integration Index 2019, which builds on the first edition published in 2016, provides up-to-date data on the status and progress of regional integration in Africa. It also helps to assess the level of integration for every Regional Economic Community (REC) and their member countries. The report observed that although 20 countries score above average, no African country can be considered well integrated into its region. Even the most integrated country, South Africa, scores 0.625 out of 1, less than two-thirds of its potential on the scale. The report found that much more needs to be done to integrate regional economies to make them more resilient to shocks such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the Index shows that levels of integration on the continent are relatively low with an average score of 0.327 out of 1. “Whereas the Index edition we are releasing today has data cut off points in 2019, the present COVID-19 pandemic has reopened the question of whether enough is being done in advancing regional integration as a means to help Africa withstand systematic shocks such as the one being experienced today,” said Stephen Karingi, Regional Integration Division Director at the ECA. “This index is both a measurement exercise and a call to action;...

DAR ES SALAAM, May 27 (Xinhua) -- The Southern African Development Community (SADC) senior officials on Wednesday urged members of the regional bloc to remove trade barriers to boost economy in the region. Wilbert Ibuge, Tanzania's Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, said the appeal to remove trade barriers among SADC members was made by SADC Council of Ministers permanent secretaries at the start of their three-day video conference meeting. Ibuge, who chaired the meeting, told a news conference in the business capital Dar es Salaam that the officials agreed that SADC member states should open their borders wide to ease trade amongst them with a combined population of about 345 million. "The permanent secretaries from the SADC felt that it was high time the member states enhanced their trade cooperation in order to improve economic and trade growth in the region," said Ibuge. He said the three-day meeting that ends on Friday will, among others, review the implementation of SADC's theme for 2019/2020 "A Conducive Environment for Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development, Increased Intra-Regional Trade and Job Creation". Tanzania is the current chair of the SADC, an inter-governmental organization established in 1992 to further socio-economic cooperation and integration as well as political and security cooperation among 16 southern African countries. Enditem Source: Xihuanet

Are we now in a “new Cold War,” as headlines in recent months suggest? As the covid-19 pandemic rages on, relations between the United States and China have reached new lows, and President Trump threatened to “cut off the whole relationship.” This leaves economists and policymakers considering a question that once seemed unthinkable: What would happen to global supply chains if this decoupling should occur? Which countries can step into the vacuum created by this superpower conflict? Our recent study gives some answers. We show the building blocks are already emerging for a new international trade order — with a rapidly increasing number of poorer countries navigating this system. This has happened largely without the direction of global superpowers like the United States and China. Here is what you need to know. The ‘China shock’ has hit poor countries Like the United States, many poor countries have struggled with the economic and political effects of a “China shock” since the 1990s. As China’s export dominance in manufactured goods satisfied much of the demand from wealthier nations, developing countries saw a sharp decline in trade with the global north, as the figure below indicates. These countries have also been shut out of lucrative trade agreements with Europe and the United States, which concentrated primarily on deals with the larger “BRICS” (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). 5 ways the coronavirus is making the world’s most vulnerable a lot more vulnerable Our study explores what this shock has meant for poor countries...

Economies in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) continued to improve business climates with best performance seen in the area of getting credit. Some 25 per cent of the reforms recorded by Doing Business 2020 were in the economies of SSA. Economies of the region enacted 73 reforms in the 12 months leading to May 1, 2020. Mauritius (13), ranked the highest in the region overall, followed by Rwanda (38) and Kenya (56). Compared with the previous year, SSA economies increased their average doing-business score by 0.9 points. Notably, most reforms in the region were in the areas of starting a business, dealing with construction permits and getting credit. Be that as it may, despite the advancements, there's still a long road ahead. Seventeen economies had no reforms in the 12 months through May 2019; three economies (Eritrea, Somalia, South Sudan) have never implemented any reforms in the past five years and two (Somali and South Sudan) have never implemented reforms in the areas. Regional score at 51.8 (out of 100) is way below OECD high-income average of 78.4 and the global average of 63. Only two SSA economies rank in the top 50 on the ease-of-doing-business rankings while most of the bottom 20 economies in the global rankings are from the region. Within the context of the much-hyped African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), one indicator — trading across borders — shows the region lagging. For instance, time to clear exporting goods at the border takes 97 hours compared to eight and...

Notwithstanding calls for the implementation of a continental trade deal, the latest Africa Regional Integration Index (ARII 2019) has shown that regional integration remains very poor and vital to building resilient economies that will survive the effect of the pandemic. According to the report, much more needs to be done to integrate regional economies to make them more resilient to shocks such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the Index shows that levels of integration on the continent are relatively low with an average score of 0.327 out of 1. The second Africa Regional Integration Index (ARII 2019) was unveiled recently by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Development Bank and the African Union Commission (AUC), with a call to action to African economies to deepen their integration. The 2019 Index, which builds on the first edition published in 2016, provides up-to-date data on the status and progress of regional integration in Africa. It also helps to assess the level of integration for every Regional Economic Community (REC) and their member countries. The report observed that although 20 countries score above average, no African country can be considered well integrated into its region. Even the most integrated country, South Africa, scores 0.625 less than two-thirds of its potential on the scale. For Nigeria and other African countries to succeed in its long-standing efforts towards closer economic integration, ARII 2019 recommended that countries improve regional networks of production and trade by enhancing countries’ productive, distributive, and marketing capacities; build...

Over the last few weeks, rumors—and then a few stories—have emerged that the long-expected implementation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement due on July 1 would be delayed for up to a year while the continent deals with an unprecedented economic crisis in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. While the African Union hasn’t formally confirmed any intention to pause their plans, it hasn’t seemed totally unrealistic this would be under consideration during such unprecedented times. AfCFTA, which was ratified by enough African countries last year, created the world’s largest free trade zone with a combined GDP of $3.3 trillion. Dropping trade barriers between African countries would boost trade on the continent by over 50%, according to some estimates. Others believe it would double intra-continental trade in Africa. But even with all the practical concerns around a pandemic which is not believed to have peaked yet on the continent, many long time supporters do not believe now is the time to delay the AfCFTA’s implementation—they argue the opposite. “The Continental Free Trade Agreement can be one of the most important tools of our economic recovery,” says Paulo Gomes, a former World Bank executive director and chair of the executive committee of AfroChampions, an African Union-mandated network to coordinate private sector discussions around AfCFTA. “If I’m an African finance minister I don’t have quantitative easing and the money printing money tools of the wealthier economies—trade can be our stimulus.” For Gomes and others this isn’t simply about intra-African...