In the past two decades, Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) have had growing trade and political relations with Africa and South Africa (SA) culminating in the formalisation of the BRIC forum whereby South Africa became one of the BRICs (known as BRICS). Meanwhile, Africa’s trade ties with the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) have remained strong. The objective of this paper is to outline and examine BRIC-Africa and BRIC-SA trade profiles from 2001 to 2016 against this background. This will entail an assessment of Africa’s trade with the BRICs relative to its trade with the EU and the US in the last 15 years, and in particular over the 2016 year.

The paper first compares BRIC-Africa trade with that of trade between Africa and traditional trade partners like the US and EU. This evaluation compares both imports and exports to and from Africa from BRIC, the US and the EU. Secondly, an analysis is done to exemplify the trade relationship between the individual BRIC countries and the African countries. Lastly, the focus shifts to an evaluation of the trading relationship between the individual BRIC countries and South Africa. Although declining over the last years, the BRIC trading relationship with Africa, bar petroleum oils from Nigeria and Angola, seems to be all about China’s trade with South Africa – mainly China’s imports of unspecified commodities.

Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

We live in a world where the production and consumption of services has been growing faster than that of merchandise for some time now. However whilst considerable gains await the adoption of new services modes and types, some countries lag others in the adoption, rollout and uptake of these services. Under-development and investment risk limit the extension of many services types in developing countries and there are both these supply-side and demand constraints on the growth of services sectors in these country groups. 

Consumers and producers pay a premium for services that are often sub-par and the economy is denied the gains that should accrue to the improving production possibilities related to better services. There is therefore a strong case for services trade liberalisation in much of the developing world, and this paper examines the potential benefits for a subset of African countries.

Using historical and cross-sectional data, this paper attempts to identify patterns of relationship between services trade restrictions (STRs) and real trade merchandise growth, in order to identify where gains could be made through liberalisation. The paper looks at a group of African countries as a whole, and thereafter in groups disaggregated by export specialisation product group. Both informal, semi-formal, and formal quantitative techniques are used.

Despite limitations in the data, meaningful patterns that are consistent with expectations based on economic theory could indeed be identified. The relationships vary among the services sectors and the export specialisation groups, and when analysed in aggregate these patterns were less discernible. Within each export specialisation category, the African countries with below average STRs tend to enjoy above average trade growth. Liberalisation of services trade should therefore be on the agenda of Africa’s exporting nations and should be part of a supply-side policy package to boost production and trade.

Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

The East African Community (EAC) Common Market Protocol (CMP) entered into force in 2010. Among others, the protocol consists of the services liberalisation commitments and provides for development of Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) to facilitate movement of labour and services in the region. The commitments relating to movement of natural persons providing services, i.e. Mode 4, were linked with those on movement of workers. MRAs covering accounting, architectural and engineering services were concluded by end of 2012. However, in 2014, state parties identified some discrepancies relating to trade in services in the CMP. The implementation of Mode 4 commitments had been a challenge. Some negotiations to amend the CMP are ongoing to resolve the issues of concern. An earlier tralac paper (click here to view) concluded that the linkage is not the challenge in itself but rather the lack of commitments to permit actual movement that is reflected in insufficient legal reforms.

This paper builds on these findings to provide trade data relating to movement of persons. In addition, it looks at the registration or practice licences issued to accounting, architectural, and engineering professionals; issuance of work permits to identify any implementation gaps and make recommendations. It is important to note that most of the information presented in this paper is based on desk analysis. The data available on various issues of interest is very patchy or missing, and is in aggregated format. This permits very limited analysis and it is difficult to draw any fair conclusions. For example, it is not possible to link data on work permits, registered professionals or arrival and departure information due to aggregated information. Therefore, the study only provides indicative information rather than reality and hence great care is required in using or interpreting the information presented.

Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

Over the last few years, the focus of African trade and trading relationships has focused on several countries and regions. Firstly, we have the European Union (EU) with the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU. Then we have had the United States of America (USA), and the recent uncertainty over the future of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) with the US, and then the on-going but perhaps diminishing love affair with the so-called BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. Finally, there is currently an intense policy focus on the on-going process of intra-African integration.

Against this background, trade with Japan has carried on largely unnoticed. The objective for this trade brief is to report on this trading relationship over the years since 2001 and highlight that although it is not a headline-seeking relationship it is a valuable one to both parties. We source the data from the International Trade Centre (ITC), and other than the opening graph and two tables we use the Japanese data from the ITC rather than African data. It is important to have a consistent source, and African trade data suffers from many problems.

Using Africa trade data we find that African imports from Japan are moving steadily downward from the peak of 4.3% in 2001 to the latest 2.0%. For African exports to Japan there is variation, but the opening share of 2.5% is the same as that reported during 2015. Until 2013 imports from Japan had been above exports to Japan, but over the last four years the trade balance has been relatively close.

Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

This paper examines the economic and trade profile and performance of Côte d’Ivoire since 1960, focusing on trends over the past 15 years. Côte d’Ivoire’s economic performance has been impressive over the past four years with a robust Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth which resulted in a decline in poverty from an estimated 51% in 2011 to 46% in 2015. This is set against a background that saw the estimated share of the population living below the poverty line increased from around 10% to about 49% from 1985 to 2008. During this period, the increase in the depth and severity of poverty was dramatic.

This economic recovery in the wake of its 2010 post-election crisis resulted in the average real growth rate reaching 8.5% annually between 2012 and 2015, one of the highest rates in Sub-Saharan Africa. The growth was driven by agriculture, services, industry, increased domestic demand, and rising investment despite a slowdown in agricultural production in 2016. The World Bank considers that the strong economic growth rate reported in previous years should be sustained in 2016 and 2017, with real GDP growth projected to reach 7.8% and 8% respectively. Importantly, the political situation in Côte d’Ivoire has evolved positively in recent months, and the peaceful reelection of President Alassane Ouattara at the end of October 2015 confirmed the country’s stability since the end of the political crisis in 2011.

In 2015, Côte d’Ivoire recorded exports of $11,158 million and imports of $9,915 million, contributing to a current account balance of 2.0% of GDP. In 2014, service exports totalled $797 million and service imports $3,140 million. This would also be a negative factor in the current account balance. Excluding intra-EU trade, Côte d’Ivoire has a global ranking of 57 for merchandise exports and 72 for imports. The main agricultural exports are mostly related to cocoa, while cereals dominate agricultural imports. Oil products and gold are the main non-agricultural exports, and petroleum products dominate non-agricultural imports.

Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

This paper examines the trade profile and performance of Senegal since 1960, with particular emphasis on the period since 2001. Over the course of 2015, Senegal’s macroeconomic performance was strong with a growth rate of 6.5%, making Senegal the second fastest-growing economy in west Africa (behind Côte d’Ivoire). Growth remained strong in 2016. The primary sector is the fastest-growing sector boosted by extractives, fishing, and agriculture, with the latter helped by good rainfall and strong outcomes from government programmes. Industry decelerated somewhat despite strong performances in construction, chemistry and energy, while services – which represent more than half of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – are still growing rapidly, thanks to advances in the transport and communications sectors. Exports have been growing rapidly, mainly due to stronger output. However, over the past 16 years, Senegal has consistently run a merchandise trade deficit, with imports significantly above exports each year.

Senegal is a member of the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS). The ECOWAS CET was approved in 2013 with the aim of establishing a customs union for ECOWAS through the adoption of a common external tariff vis-à-vis third countries. The country concluded negotiations for an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union as part of the West African group in February 2014. The EU-EPA gives reciprocal access: Senegal will continue to access the EU market while liberalising access to its own market for EU exports. The difference, however, is that the EPA gives immediate access to the EU market while West Africa will remove import tariffs over a 20-year transition period. Senegal is also a member of the African group negotiating for a Continental Free Trade Arrangement (CFTA), although to date the rhetoric on progress is running a little ahead of the reality, especially as Africa wrestles with the problem of recalcitrant or failed states within its borders.

Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

This paper considers China’s position in world trade from two perspectives. The first section details the evolution of Chinese trade over the period 2001-2013, with an update of the global trade data from 2013 through to the 2105 December year. It highlights China’s remarkable rise in global trade importance where it has overtaken the United States (US) as the world’s largest single country exporter. This section shows China’s main trading partners and how these relationships have shifted over time. The rise of Chinese domination in manufactured exports as well as sectoral shifts in its import and export profile is emphasised. Finally, a brief discussion follows on Chinese services data.

The second part details the application of a Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model incorporating various economic variables and assumptions to project Chinese trade patterns to the year 2025. Our emphasis is on trade shares and how they are projected to shift over time. Our aggregation of the GTAP sectors is for the agriculture, natural resources, manufacturing and service sectors.

Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

The objective for this paper is to assess Africa’s economic profile over the last fifty or so years and try to place this performance in perspective. We use a variety of indicators, most of which have been selected from the World Bank Development Indicators. We note at the outset that where data has a missing year that is crucial for our analysis we have used the adjacent year as a proxy. Thus, there is a slight degree of subjectivity in the results. We also note that there are several countries for which there is just not enough data to use even by introducing proxies. Further, we note that there are instances in the data that do not seem to be realistic. These could either be a rebalancing (as was the case for Nigeria in 2004 when the economy “grew” by 33,7%), or mistakes in the data as for Equatorial Guinea, where growth rates of 150% were reported by the World Bank for 1977 following an increase of 66,6% the previous year. We have gone with the data as reported by the World Bank as the definite source.

In summary, we find that based upon the standard Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data many, but not all, African countries have performed reasonably well over an extended period. The problem starts when the GDP analysis turns into looking at this GDP expressed in real (constant dollar) terms on a per capita basis. Here Africa has done poorly, and accounting for much of the difference between standard GDP and GDP per capita in constant dollars is the dramatic population growths in most (but again not all) African countries.

Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

This paper examines the trade profile and performance of Madagascar, focusing on the period since 2001. According to the World Trade Organization (WTO, 2015), Madagascar is slowly recovering from the sociopolitical crisis which broke out in 2009 and was brought to an end by the December 2013 presidential elections. The upturn is due to a strong performance in rice farming, the recent extraction and subsequent exportation of nickel, cobalt and titanium, and agrifood exports having become more diversified, reflecting the immense wealth of Madagascar’s land and of Malagasy know-how. Services exports, mostly tourism, have also grown and clothing exports, which declined drastically when the US withheld African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) preferences in 2009, have recovered after these preferences were reinstated in June 2014.

The series of recurrent crises plunged the population into severe poverty, and in 2015 more than 90% of the country's inhabitants (up from 70% in 2005) were living on less than US$2 a day. The crisis and its various aftermaths has led to the rundown state of basic infrastructure, the deterioration of governance, and the cessation of foreign aid has resulted in a sharp fall in government revenue. This crisis has seen lending rates approaching 50%, although inflation has been gradually lowered from 10.3% in 2007 to around 6% and the currency has fluctuated but there has been an appreciation of the real effective exchange rate. This latter effect leads to a less competitive economy with a decline in imports and exports of goods and services. A bright spot has been the development of the mining sector, now a major component of exports.

Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

Madagascar: La politique de commerce et profil de performance

Ce document examine le profil de commerce et de performance du Madagascar, se basant sur la période commençant en 2001. Selon l’Organisation Mondiale de Commerce (OMC, 2015), le Madagascar recouvre lentement de la crise sociopolitique qui s’est éclatée en 2009 et avais pris fin avec les élections présidentielles de 2013. La reprise économique est due  à une forte performance dans la culture du riz, la récente extraction consécutif à l’’exportation de Nickel, cobalt et titane, les exportations dans le domaine agro-alimentaire devenues diversifiées, reflétant ainsi l’immense richesse du Madagascar et de son savoir-faire. Les services d’exportation et surtout le tourisme et l’exportation de vêtements avaient connus une croissance puis avaient considérablement chutés quand les Etats-Unis avaient différé la Loi sur la croissance et les opportunités économiques en Afrique en 2009 pour reprendre en Juin 2014.

La série de crises récurrentes plongea la population dans une pauvreté sévère, et en 2015, plus de 90% d’habitants (environs 70% en 2005) vivaient avec moins 2 dollars par jour. La crise et ses conséquences ont conduit à une dégradation des infrastructures de base, une détérioration de gouvernance, et la cessation de l’aide extérieure résultant en une forte diminution de revenus du gouvernement. Cette crise a connu un taux de prêt avoisinant 50% bien que l’inflation avait graduellement diminué de 10.3% en 2007 à environs 6% et  la monnaie a fluctué ; mais il y avait eu une appréciation de taux de change effectif réel. Il en est résulté une économie bien moins compétitive conduisant à un déclin de l’importation et l’exportation de biens et services.  Le point positif a été le développement du secteur minier, qui est maintenant un composant majeur de l’exportation.

Les lecteurs sont encouragés à citer et reproduire ce document à des fins éducationnelles, sans but lucratif, pourvu que la source soit reconnue. Les opinions exprimées engagent uniquement les auteurs et non le point de vue de tralac.

This working paper examines the African services trade to set a background for assessing the main issues for consideration in the current Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) negotiations. This is done systematically by firstly looking at the actual trade data in order to see who the main traders are and assess the extent to which South Africa dominates the trade. We then look at some of the issues associated with barriers to services trade and how the CFTA may address these.

Services are a major part of modern economies; services trade is important for many African countries but the data is difficult to obtain, especially for bilateral trade data. The authors find that South Africa is not the dominant service trader on the continent but is dominant in many of the smaller services sectors. Transport and travel are the major traded sectors although these are generally outside a trade negotiation focus.

The current measurements of services trade restrictiveness show large variations between different countries and different sectors. Despite its current difficulties, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) represents the benchmark in what can be achieved with services trade liberalisation. Africa sorely needs reforms in services trade frameworks and policy environments; in the absence of specific targets for the usual negotiating reciprocal process with partners, the emphasis reverts back to regulatory reforms with its emphasis on unilateral policy and best-endeavours in trade agreements.

Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.