News
tralac’s Daily News selection: 4 June 2015
The selection: Thursday, 4 June
WEF Africa: updates from IOL
Northern Corridor experts meet ahead of presidential summit (New Times)
Senior officials and experts from member states of the East African Community (EAC), yesterday, met in Kampala ahead of the 10th Northern Corridor Integration Projects (NCIP) Summit. The summit, which is expected to be attended by at least four heads of state on Saturday, is aimed at assessing the implementation status of projects launched under the NCIP framework. It is expected to draw the Presidents of Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan and the host Uganda. The NCIP meeting will have three other sessions; the private sectors’ meeting (Thursday), the ministerial session (Friday), and the Heads of State Summit (Saturday).
The summit will also have a special focus on how to actively involve the private sector in the integration projects. Robert Nkusi Ford, the second vice chair of the Private Sector Foundation (PSF), said the private sector has already identified opportunities in the public-private partnership arrangement that include investment in the ICT sector.
@DonatBagula: I presented the impact assessment of northern corridor performance improvement to senior officials from member states
Gerhard Erasmus: 'The Continental FTA should develop its own REC acquis' (tralac)
The notion of the “REC acquis” has become a notable feature of intra-African trade negotiations. What is the acquis and how could it help to design trade arrangements suitable for 21st century conditions and challenges? A recap of recent negotiations will shed light on how the acquis has been introduced into the African trade and integration debate. We also offer ideas on how to utilize this concept in a more imaginative manner.
Illicit financial flows and development indices: 2008–2012 (Global Financial Integrity)
“For nearly one-quarter of the 82 countries that we analyzed, the ratio of illicit financial outflows to GDP is 10% or greater,” commented Mr. Spanjers, the principal author of the report. “For example, IFFs to GDP amount to a staggering 21.7% in Honduras, 18.1% in Zambia, and 11.2% in Ethiopia. It would not be overstating the point to note that, if any other economic factor had a double-digit ratio to GDP, it would be front-page news. Unfortunately, this is often not the case when illicit flows are concerned.”
South Africa: SARS to employ more tax specialists to deal with base erosion, profit shifting (Business Day)
South Africa: Business confidence slips to a 16-year low (SACCI)
Business confidence slipped to a sixteen-year low as the SACCI Business Confidence Index (BCI) slumped to 86.9 in May 2015 compared to the level of 86.8 registered in September 1999. Comparisons with more recent figures show the BCI two index points lower than in May 2014 and three index points lower than in April 2015.
Patel spells out IDC’s contribution to regional economy (Business Day)
India to resume preferential trade talks with South Africa (Mining Weekly)
Retailers express concern over import licences (The Herald)
Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers president Mr Denford Mutashu told The Herald Business during a tour of supermarkets and wholesalers by Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha on Tuesday that there is need for checks and balances after the issuance of import licences to prevent indiscipline and corruption. “The issuance of import licences is a noble idea but because they are awarded mostly to middlemen; most of them have seen it as an opportunity to make money.” His comments come in the wake of an outcry by the grain milling industry over the issuance of import permits for mealie meal.
Kenya: Weak euro eats into horticulture earnings (Business Daily)
Horticulture exporters earned Sh1 billion less in the first quarter compared to a similar period in 2014, partly as a result of a weaker euro. Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) data shows that earnings from flower, vegetable and fresh fruit exports for quarter one 2015 stood at Sh24.79 billion compared to Sh25.86 billion last year. Kenya Flower Council chief executive Jane Ngigi said exporters are not only facing reduced earnings due to the weaker euro compared to last year, but also face higher costs due to the stronger dollar which they use to pay for 70 per cent of their costs.
Shilling’s decline could scale down ballooning imports (Business Daily)
Tanzania: Dont kill Dar port with unjustifiable charges (editorial comment, The Citizen)
FDI values in Africa hit five year high (African Review)
The 2015 Africa Attractiveness Survey conducted by Ernst and Young revealed that foreign direct investment into Africa reached US$128bn, up 136 per cent in 2014. The number of jobs created from FDI rose by 68 per cent in the same year, resulting in 188,400 new positions across Africa, according to the survey.
Tanzania: NSSF to invest heavily in coffee, cotton, cashew nut processing in three regions (IPPMedia)
The National Social Security Fund has taken initiatives to invest heavily in coffee, cotton and cashew nut products by build building three key factories in three regions so as to add value to those crops. This was said here on Tuesday by the NSSF Director General, Dr Ramadhan Dau when briefing stakeholders about the Fund during the 5th Annual General Meeting. “We intend to invest in processing plants in three regions, and once the projects are completed, Tanzania will no longer sell raw materials at cheaper prices as is the case at the moment,” he said.
Agriculture production and transport infrastructure in east Africa: an application of spatial autoregression (World Bank)
This paper examines the agricultural potential of East Africa, namely, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, through an examination of the two different sources of spatial data. Despite the currently high international commodity prices, in particular in the traditional export crops, such as coffee and cotton, these East African countries are still struggling to improve agricultural productivity. This paper specifically aims at: (i) generating spatial agricultural production and potential data for the region; (ii) developing spatial data to show transport accessibility in each locality; and (iii) developing an empirical model to link these data and analyze the relationship between agriculture production and transport infrastructure investment.
How much of the labor in African agriculture is provided by women? (World Bank)
The contribution of women to labor in African agriculture is regularly quoted in the range of 60 to 80 percent. Using individual-disaggregated, plot-level labor input data from nationally representative household surveys across six Sub-Saharan African countries, this study estimates the average female labor share in crop production at 40 percent. It is slightly above 50 percent in Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda, and substantially lower in Nigeria (37 percent), Ethiopia (29 percent), and Niger (24 percent). There are no systematic differences across crops and activities, but female labor shares tend to be higher in households where women own a larger share of the land and when they are more educated.
Smallholders’ land ownership and access in Sub-Saharan Africa: a new landscape?
This paper draws on unique household-level data from six countries (Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda). We aim to explore three issues, namely (i) the distribution of land ownership and associated inequality as well as landlessness; (ii) the extent of land rental market activity (including potential gender bias in such activity); and (iii) the factors associated with land market participation interpreted in light of the structural transformation of Africa’s economies.
Costs and benefits of land fragmentation: evidence from Rwanda (World Bank)
African fields to whole foods: the potential of organic trade in Africa
Firm productivity and infrastructure costs in east Africa (World Bank)
The current paper aims at examining the impacts of improving the quality of public infrastructure services in five East African countries: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, where the industrial sector, especially manufacturing, has been weak in recent years. While the countries achieved relatively high GDP growth of 5–8%, the sectoral contribution of manufacturing was less than 0.5% of GDP. Burundi and Rwanda experienced negative growth in the manufacturing sector in recent years. By contrast, the service sector and the construction industry contributed significantly to economic growth in the region.
Towards a framework for the governance and delivery of infrastructure (OECD)
The framework offers decision makers a methodology to analyse challenges, mapping out options on how to solve them, and guides them in carrying through decisions. It consists of two components: i) a list of governance preconditions - these concern the overall enabling governance environment for infrastructure; and, ii) a decision tree, which guides countries with respect to making sectoral decisions and overall infrastructure decisions.
Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (UNECA)
SADC: Developing a regional mediation training curriculum
Brazil's May trade surplus up on lower imports
Cecilia Malmström: 'The geopolitical aspect of TTIP' (EU)
Tom Vilsack: '5 facts you should know about the role trade plays on America's farms and ranches' (The White House)
The impact of trade on labor market dynamics (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)
This post has been sourced on behalf of tralac and disseminated to enhance trade policy knowledge and debate. It is distributed to over 300 recipients across Africa and internationally, serving in the AU, RECS, national government trade departments and research and development agencies. Your feedback is most welcome. Any suggestions that our recipients might have of items for inclusion are most welcome. Richard Humphries (Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; Twitter: @richardhumphri1)
