With more investment in internet infrastructure and technological innovation, Rwanda could benefit more from increased trade in services, asserts the World Bank. This was stipulated in the latest World Bank report on Rwanda’s economic update released on September 23. It was dubbed “Boosting exports through technology, innovation and trade in Services.” Rwanda aspires to become a knowledge-based and services-led economy through diversification of its export base into distribution and logistics services, tourism, business travel and financial services, as part of the National Strategy for Transformation. These service activities offer significant employment opportunities for both relatively unskilled and more skilled workers in different sectors. Calvin Djiofack, World Bank Country Economist, noted that Rwanda should invest more in strengthening the link between e-commerce and exports as it is not fully exploited by local firms which lack information regarding foreign markets. “Investment in internet infrastructure can provide isolated enterprises, such as those in rural and underdeveloped urban areas, low-cost connectivity to markets and customers, and increase local firms’ participation in international trade,” he added. The report emphasises that enhanced digitisation could also foster digitally-enabled services to facilitate cross-border trade, support backward and forward linkages to agriculture, mining, and manufacturing. This call finds Rwanda on a journey of significant strides made over the last couple of years in improving ICT infrastructure to drive productivity of the entire economy, reduce transaction costs and inefficiencies in the use of capital and labour, data shows. In 2019, data from the Ministry of Trade and Industry (Minicom) indicate...

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is building a fund and drafting a protocol to ensure participation of more women and youth in trade. This week, AfCFTA Secretary General Wamkele Mene said the fund, created through the Afreximbank and known as the AfCFTA Adjustment Facility, will be used to cushion countries from short-term revenue losses once they lift tariff barriers for cross-border trade. The tariffs, which include licences, permit fees and taxes, have been cited among the challenges limiting free trade, and the participation of women and youth. This is besides access to credit, market information and infrastructure. Some $1 billion has already been raised towards the facility: AfCFTA says the target is between $7 billion and $10 billion, reflecting just how important lifting the protectionist policies will be for trade to thrive. “Young Africans are at the cutting edge of technological advancements. We will be making a catastrophic mistake if we don’t include these important segments of our society in the implementation of this agreement,” Mr Mene said. The facility will be boosted by the African Trade Gateway, a digital platform “that will provide market and due diligence information about your counterparts, including the rules of origin, Customs procedures, as well as payments transfers platform”, he added. The AfCFTA is supposed to harmonise policies, seeing that 70 percent of informal trade in Africa is carried out by women. Mr Mene said small and medium enterprises by women contribute 60 percent of Africa’s GDP, creating 450 million jobs. The...

Regional trade facilitation organisation TradeMark Africa has signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Agricultural and Bioscience International (CABI) to cement collaboration and working together for the organisations to promote and enhance market access for regional produce. The two organisations have collaborated since 2017 to implement various Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Measures (SPS) projects across East Africa in, among other areas, conducting studies on SPS Gaps in the region and tools to remedy the situation. At a time when SPS issues are significant non-tariff barriers blocking regional produce from lucrative continental and global markets, TMA and CABI will now jointly support strengthening of national SPS systems, engagement with Regional Economic Communities and support AfCFTA implementation specifically the Protocol on Trade in Goods and Annex 7 on Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures. Speaking during the MOU signing TMA CEO Frank Matsaert highlighted the immense potential the region’s agricultural sector holds, if risks in food safety, plant health and animal health are addressed “We look forward to working together in improving the safety of agricultural goods coming from this continent to the rest of the world to enhance market access. We will also bring our expertise of tapping into ICT to modernize how Standards and SPS licensing and regulation is undertaken for efficiency” On his part CABI Director for General Development Dr Dennis Rangi noted that the two organisations will create great synergies in SPS work which is a key catalyst to trade. “The coming into effect of the Africa...

Laden with roses and carnations, the plane will land at Stansted in the next three weeks. Grown for months in vast, humming greenhouses in the dull heat of Kenya’s Rift Valley, the flowers were unearthed, dusted off, wrapped and dispatched for export to the UK earlier this month. While the process might seem plus ça change for the growers, for British and Kenyan customs officials, these bouquets are the future of trade – one of the first examples of a consignment of goods exported to the UK almost entirely using electronic documentation. The exercise forms part of a much larger trial testing the viability of an entirely digital model for trading practices. Organised by the Institute of Exports & International Trade (IOE&IT) in collaboration with TradeMark Africa, the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP) initiative is one of a series of government-sponsored pilots that aim to demonstrate the feasibility of capturing all necessary data about a container for the importing nation’s customs officials before it even leaves its country of origin. If successful, this ‘Ecosystem of Trust’ could provide a blueprint for avoiding the endless form-filling that accompanies international trade – a headache that has grown increasingly painful for UK exporters since Brexit. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the export of foodstuffs from the UK to the EU, where Brexit has created new pressures on companies of all sizes to accede to strict regulations from Brussels on documentation. Marco Forgione recalls a recent case of a large supermarket chain seeming to move a shipping...

Kenya's export value increased by 17 per cent in 2021 to hit KSh 666.7 billion (US$ 5.5 billion) compared to KSh 567.4 billion (US$ 4.7 billion) in 2020 Data from the Kenya Trade Network Agency (KenTrade) Business Intelligence Tool shows that the increase was influenced by earnings from top agricultural products (tea and horticultural products) The export volumes increased from 643.7 billion tonnes to 743.7 billion tonnes in 2021 with improved exports in clothing accessories and agricultural products Kenya's export value increased by 17 per cent in 2021 to hit KSh 666.7 billion (US$ 5.5 billion) compared to KSh 567.4 billion (US$ 4.7 billion) in 2020.This is according to the latest data from the Kenya Trade Network Agency (KenTrade) Business Intelligence Tool that shows that the increase was influenced by earnings from top agricultural products (tea and horticultural products). As per the report, tea and horticulture registered about KSh 296 billion (US 2.4 billion), a 44.4 per cent of the total domestic exports.The export volumes increased from 643.7 billion tonnes to 743.7 billion tonnes in 2021 with improved exports in clothing accessories and agricultural products. "Through the trade facilitation platform, Kenya Exported approximately 1.2 million tonnes of agricultural products especially tea and horticulture that still stand as our main export," the report states. Uganda remains Kenya's largest market, exporting goods worth KSh. 91.6 billion (US$756 million), followed by Netherlands at KSh 61.6 billion (US$510 million) and USA at KSh 59.5 billion (US$ 493 million). The African Market, Europe and Asia...

The Organisation of Women in Trade (OWIT), a trade and investment support oorganistion that works on improving the knowledge and skill base of women on trade laws, policies, rules and procedures, is scheduled to hold an impact-packed four-day conference in Abuja. In a statement signed by the president of OWIT-Nigeria, Mrs Blessing Irabor-Oza, this year’s Africa Women Trade Conference(second in series) on the heels of a successful hosting of its first outing in Nairobi, Kenya, will be hosted by OWIT Nigeria in collaboration with OWIT Zimbabwe, OWIT Nairobi, and OWIT South Africa. According to her, the conference will aim at providing better representation through integration for African women-owned businesses in regional and global value chains. It will help establish a better understanding of the links between gender and trade actions on the African continent and create a platform for African women in trade to navigate potential opportunities to trade in the Nigerian Market, build active partnerships and leverage existing networks. Irabor-Oza confirmed that the conference, being sponsored by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ-ECOWAS), International Trade Centre (ITC), United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Africa Women & Youth Empowerment Group (AWYEG) was scheduled to span four days and will be launched with a pre-conference summit on policy dialogue for Women to trade under AfCFTA by Africa Women & Youth Empowerment Group (AWEYEG). The main conference will hold on the 28th and 29th of September with the theme “Positioning African Women For The Next Big Opportunity In The Regional...

Nairobi 25th August: Regional trade facilitation organisation TradeMark Africa has this morning signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Agricultural and Bioscience International (CABI) to cement collaboration and working together for the organisations to promote to enhance market access for regional produce. The two organisations have collaborated since 2017 to implement various Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Measures (SPS) projects across East Africa in, among other areas, conducting studies on SPS Gaps in the region and tools to remedy the situation. At a time when SPS issues are significant non-tariff barriers blocking regional produce from lucrative continental and global markets, TMA and CABI will now jointly support strengthening of national SPS systems, engagement with Regional Economic Communities and support AfCFTA implementation specifically the Protocol on Trade in Goods and Annex 7 on Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures. Speaking during the MOU signing TMA CEO Frank Matsaert highlighted the immense potential the region’s agricultural sector holds, if risks in food safety, plant health and animal health are addressed “We look forward to working together in improving the safety of agricultural goods coming from this continent to the rest of the world to enhance market access. We will also bring our expertise of tapping into ICT to modernize how Standards and SPS licensing and regulation is undertaken for efficiency” On his part CABI Director for General Development Dr Dennis Rangi noted that the two organisations will create great synergies in SPS work which is a key catalyst to trade. “The coming...

The post-COVID-19 landscape the new U.K. leadership headed by Liz Truss inherits today shows widening social and economic disparities along with deeper inequalities of opportunities at the global level. Continuing the trend of cuts to the U.K. aid budget and the current policy of “aid for trade” will not provide the newly formed government with the backdrop to address some of the world’s largest poverty reduction challenges. U.K. leadership in the field of global aid and development was firmly established in 2013 when the country hit the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s target of giving 0.7% of gross national income as official development assistance. In 2021, after seven years of maintaining its 0.7% ODA contribution of GNI, the U.K. government lowered its commitment to 0.5% and cut its foreign aid budget by £4.6 billion, or $5.3 billion. Yet today, the poorest half of the world’s population shares only 8.5% of total global income. The global gender gap has increased by a generation, while racial and ethnic origin is a factor in multidimensional poverty. Furthermore, climate change is expected to push up to 135 million more people into poverty by 2030. The £4.6 billion cut seems small when compared to the over £10 billion known wastage in substandard personal protective equipment unfit for use at the peak of the pandemic in the United Kingdom. These cuts to the aid sector affect all four program areas identified as priority areas: health, education, climate, and humanitarian assistance. Effects of UK aid cuts According to ONE Campaign estimates, 7.1 million children will lose access to a “decent” education, of which 3.7 million are girls. These cuts will mean 5.3 million...

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was signed on 21st March 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda, by 44 out of the 55 African countries, and brokered by the African Union (AU). This agreement was born of the realisation that total trade exports from Africa to the rest of the world are estimated at USD 760 billion; however, this is mostly in the form of raw materials and thus prevents Africa from deriving the true value of such exports. Considering that African exports to the world make up only 3% of the total world trade value, there exists much scope for improvement. No wonder then, in a 2020 report, the World Bank estimated that by 2035, real income gains from full implementation of the agreement could be 7%, or nearly USD 450 billion, while predicting that the agreement could contribute to lifting an additional 30m people from extreme poverty and 68m people from moderate poverty. Against this backdrop, it is clear that the AfCFTA has the potential to make a significant impact on improving the livelihoods of the African people, by boosting intra-African trade and generating new employment opportunities on an integrated African labour market. In a follow-up report (https://bit.ly/3wZhqmM) published in June 2022, the World Bank listed other potential benefits of the AfCFTA on labour including higher-paid, better-quality jobs, especially for women; as well as wage rises of 11.2% for women and 9.8% for men by 2035. Policymakers say that the free movement of labour will be a key contributor to the successful...

The contemporary era of regional trade across the globe is one of a complex interaction between people, companies, and organisations. Supply chains traverse countries and regions. Trade has become an everyday business, and its performance largely depends on connectivity along roads, rail, and sea, telecommunications, financial markets, and information processing. Nevertheless, despite such conspicuous knowledge of what facilitates trade, Africa’s regional trade potential remains hugely under-exploited. World Bank notes that trade between countries on the continent represents 12 per cent of the total economic activity compared to 40 per cent in Asia and 60 per cent in Europe. To help bridge this gap, African nations instituted the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement on 1 January 2021. This marked the dawn of a new era in intra-regional trade facilitation. The agreement aims to eliminate import tariffs on 97per cent of goods traded globally and address non-tariff barriers. It opens up a market of more than 1.3 billion people and is expected to boost intra-African trade while encouraging direct investment in the continent from the rest of the world. While the deal focuses on facilitating trade and services and easing the regulatory measures and technical trade barriers, a lot needs to be done. For Africa to boost intra-regional trade from the 12 per cent reported by the World Bank to the target of 20 per cent, it needs to make significant changes in technology, infrastructure, and policy reforms. For one, boosting intra-African trade requires Africa to encourage more investment opportunities...