The acting Executive Director of the International Trade Centre, Dorothy Tembo says the coronavirus pandemic could represent a risk for the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement, but African leaders could also turn that into an opportunity for stronger collaboration if specific policies are fast-tracked. She joins CNBC Africa’s Kenneth Igbomor for more insight on this discussion.   Source: CNBC Africa

Egypt's new Ambassador to the Tanzania and the EAC, Mohammed Yasser Ala'Eldeen El Shawaf, said his country was eager to boost trade and technical cooperation EAC Secretary General Amb. Dr Richard Sezibera with the Egyptian Ambassador to Tanzania and the EAC Mohammed Shawaf after the envoy presented his credentials to the Secretary General. Egypt has committed to improve ties with the East African Community. Presenting his credentials to the EAC Secretary General, Dr Richard Sezibera, at the EAC Headquarters in Arusha on Tuesday, Egypt's new Ambassador to the Tanzania and the EAC, Mohammed Yasser Ala'Eldeen El Shawaf, said his country was eager to boost trade and technical cooperation with the EAC Partner States. Welcoming the Egyptian ambassador, Dr. Sezibera described Egypt as an important trading partner for the EAC and praised its outstanding role in promoting negotiations for the Tripartite Free Trade Area (FTA) between the EAC, COMESA and SADC. Dr Sezibera noted that the Tripartite FTA when fully implemented would move the African Continent from the margins of Global Trade, adding that it was a good basis for the Continental Free Trade Area envisioned by the African Union. The Secretary General thanked Egypt for making a tariff offer to the EAC and went on to request Egypt to encourage the other member states to negotiate as a bloc instead of doing so as separate entities saying this would hasten the operationalization of the Tripartite FTA. Source: New Vision

Ahead of last week’s African Union ministerial meeting, prominent business leaders issued a letter to Heads of State to observe the 01 July deadline for the African Continental Free Trade Agreement to come into force. The signatories to the letter say that there is no legitimate reason to postpone the AfCFTA even if they understand that a staggered approach can be used given current circumstances. The letter was written in response to several media articles alleging that African Heads of State are considering to delay the implementation date. One of the signatories is Paulo Gomes, former Executive Director of the World Bank and Chair of the Executive Committee of AfroChampions. The AfroChampions network has been mandated by the African Union to coordinate private sector discussions around the AfCFTA. Gomes stated that the ministers had a duty to respect the current deadline. “We understand that certain parts of the AfCFTA are sensitive. The rules of origins and tariffs need time but we can start with trading of essential goods. That will send a strong message to the world that we are serious about the AfCFTA and to African businesses. The private sector is the biggest beneficiary of the AfCFTA and with supply chains being disrupted globally, it is even more urgent that we have a functioning system within the continent to create continental supply chains.” The signatories argued that governments were right to ensure that the immediate response was a health one. But the looming crisis is economic and the AfCFTA...

The first commerce under an Africa-wide free-trade pact will provide new stimulus to countries on the continent to overcome the economic damage of the coronavirus, even if it could be delayed for around six months, according to the most senior official of this agreement. The secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area is exploring the feasibility of moving talks involving more than 50 countries and real-time translation into four languages online. However, full border closures by some 30 nations aimed at limiting the spread of the virus is likely to restrict trade flows over the coming months, Wamkele Mene, the secretary-general said in an interview. While the agreement entered into force legally last year, protocols for trade in goods, including tariff concessions, need to be agreed for its implementation and commerce to start on July 1. Disruptions caused by the pandemic have set negotiations back by two and half months. “The consideration for postponement doesn’t mean that there no longer is political will and that there is no longer political commitment,” Mene said by phone from Addis Ababa on Wednesday. “We have to adjust to conditions that unfortunately nobody could have anticipated and we have to give the space to governments to solve the public health crisis as a matter of priority.” Customs Union Africa lags other regions in terms of internal trade, with intracontinental commerce accounting for only 15% of the total, compared with 58% in Asia and more than 70% in Europe. The agreement is meant to...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9JQoWHUHGg

African countries are facing a dual crisis – the impact of COVID-19 on their populations and the global economic slow-down which threatens to undo the hard-fought gains of the last 25 years Nestled in the undulating hills of central Ghana is a Fair Trade cooperative cocoa farm that produces chocolate for export to the world, including to supermarkets across the UK. When I visited the farm last summer, I saw for myself the many jobs the farm provides – many taken by women – and the families that these support. Consumers of the chocolate that originates from Ghana include, no doubt, thousands of workers in my constituency of Stafford, like those in the General Electric factory in Stafford. They manufacture transformers for the energy grid across the globe, including in developing countries like Ghana, where electricity supply can often be insecure or not available. That’s how trade works. Both sides win. For the UK and Africa, our two-way trade has enormous value – a total of £35.1bn of goods and services in 2018 according to ONS – creating and sustaining countless jobs across our country and on the continent. The Prime Minister has been quick to seize the opportunity. At the inaugural Africa Investment Summit in London earlier this year, he promised to renew our economic partnership with Africa, containing some of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Today, however, African countries are facing a dual crisis – the impact of COVID-19 on their populations and the global economic slow-down...

CEGA is committed to sharing a diversity of voices and perspectives. This post, written by Anthony Mveyange (EASST Fellow, TradeMark Africa) and Andrew Mold (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa), was originally published on the Brookings Institution website. Recent global trends like the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate change crisis, and heightened trade disputes among the world’s leading trade partners have highlighted the vulnerability of global value chains (GVCs). At present, the scale of the disruption in East Africa is quite dire — imports from China (a common source of intermediate goods) through the Mombasa Port declined by a drastic 20 percent shortly after the onset of the pandemic, between January and February 2020. In light of these trends, governments and industries in East Africa should consider rapidly shifting from focusing on global value chains (GVCs) to regional ones (RVCs). Given the region’s past difficulties with entering global value chains and consolidating the gains from regional integration processes, heightened emphasis on regional value chains could reap compounding benefits. The time is ripe: As documented in our recent report, the recently signed and ratified African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) can be the great enabler of that shift. THE STAGNATION IN GVCS The literature on GVCs emerged in the 1990s, after which the development community began to frame development success in terms of the ability of countries to insert themselves into these GVCs. Although not uncontested, academic research provided evidence of the benefits to workers and improved prospects for poverty reduction from participating in GVCs. However, the...

On February 27, Nigeria confirmed the first case of Covid-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since then, the virus has spread to all corners of the continent. Even before the first cases were recorded in Africa, Covid-19 was already impacting international demand for exports in key sectors such as textiles and horticulture. Flower exports are down by more than 90 per cent and tourist arrivals have ground to a halt. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics reported that imports dropped by more than 20 per cent in the first two months of 2020, with Chinese imports plummeting around 37 per cent. As the pandemic continues, the projected losses grow. Trade volumes in the EAC are down by up to 25 per cent since the beginning of 2020, with even greater reductions in the informal sector. African countries, conscious of the fragility of their public health systems and limited intensive care capacity, have instituted strict measures to stem the spread of the virus. However, for many in the region, their livelihood depends on moving about freely. There is no work-from-home option for the hundreds of thousands of small-scale traders. A day of work missed often translates to a day without food on the table. While health considerations are of primary importance, the prospects for tackling the challenges the pandemic presents are inextricably linked to trade and the economy. Continued trade at this time is crucial for three main reasons. First, trade is essential in ensuring people and governments have what they need to...

From a political and economic point of view, the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) represents one of the most ambitious initiatives since the establishment of the African Union. Things were going as expected, until Covid-19 got involved, and so now the negotiation for implementing the agreement is temporarily suspended. The issues concerning rules of origin, dispute settlement, agreements of tariffs for certain products and more remain to be settled. No Reason to panic! The AfCFTA is not going to peter out. Yes, at this stage, the pandemic may produce less enthusiasm for the AfCFTA. Governments don’t know what to think. …to free or protect the economy! Will our leaders learn the lesson, and realize that a closed economy is poorer? We’ll see. But the first indication is not inspiring. African countries should continue negotiation to construct an effective AfCFTA regime that promotes development, and is beneficial in a balanced and fair manner, to all parties that participate in the market. The AfCFTA should offer a system that builds on deeper integration within a shared rule-based framework, provide benefits across the continent by restraining costly and inefficient protectionism, encourage cost-reducing scale economies in production of goods and services, and help prevent races to the bottom that would have otherwise have occurred from competitive pressures. No wonder why poorer countries want to be sure free trade is not only acceptable but is a promising solution for development. Why should policymakers be concerned about poorer African countries? Naturally, poorer African countries, in...

Ethiopia-Eritrea relations continue to thaw, as on Sunday, May 3, Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki, Foreign Minister Osman Saleh, and Presidential Advisor Yemane Ghebreab, visited Ethiopia, where they were received by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. During the two-day diplomatic visit, the leaders discussed bilateral cooperation and regional issues affecting both states, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the desert locust infestation. Afwerki and his delegation also visited several agricultural and water development projects in Ethiopia’s Oromia Regional State. After two decades of hostility, Eritrean-Ethiopian diplomatic relations were revived in June 2018, when a peace deal was signed to formally end the countries’ 1998-2000 border war and to open borders between the countries. However, borders were again closed several months after the initial agreement; Ethiopia and Eritrea have yet to come to a formal agreement on their reopening. Also in Ethiopia, the Tigray region has announced plans to hold regional elections in defiance of a nationwide postponement of voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Defending their decision, the region’s governing Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said, “We are making preparations including the holding of a regional election in order to safeguard the rights of our people from chaos.” Ethiopia’s National Election Board has stated that the TPLF did not submit a request for a vote, and that only the National Election Board has the mandate to conduct an election. In other regional news, on Monday, May 5, Sudan announced the appointment of its first ambassador to the United States in 23 years. Sudan’s...