tralac’s Daily News selection: 17 July 2015

Sam Smith News 17 July 2015

News

tralac’s Daily News selection: 17 July 2015

17 Jul 2015

The OECD's Economic Survey of South Africa 2015 launches today: Preview, Government's response

Intra-African trade – an analysis (tralac)

This paper clearly reinforces the data warning outlining the dangers inherent in trying to analyse intra-African trade data. The use of mirror data, late and non-reporting and ‘vanishing’ trade has been the bane of this research; we must therefore emphasise that this paper is far from being a definitive analysis of intra-African trade. We must also emphasise, however, that the ITC is the best available source of consistent trade data and this paper represents a systematic attempt to use the available data to start shedding light on intra-African trade.

Over the last few years the aggregate intra-African trade’s (imports and exports) share of total African trade has consistently been around the 12% mark (with a high of 14% in 2009) as shares from both the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) are dramatically declining in the face of increasing Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) trade. [The author: Ron Sandrey]

Global value chains: the missing link in Sub-Saharan Africa’s trade integration (AFD)

Our analysis finds that increased trade integration has had a strong influence on growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Average real GDP per capita growth increased from 2.9 percent in the 1990s, to 4.3 percent in the 2000s. Of that 1.4 percentage point increase, about half was accounted for by higher trade integration. [The author: Roger Nord]

Obama to announce key initiatives in Kenya, Robinson Githae says (Daily Nation)

President Barack Obama is set to announce major new agreements with Kenya, the country’s ambassador to the United States, Robinson Githae, said on Thursday. The agreements are on military assistance, trade and investment and other subjects, Mr Githae said.

AGOA: Next steps

With the African Growth and Opportunity Act set in place for another decade, the Administration is asking African countries to begin thinking about what will come next – including free trade agreements, a US trade official said yesterday. When US Trade Representative Michael Froman attends the annual AGOA forum next month in Gabon, he intends to get the discussion started on preparing to move away from unilateral preferences to reciprocal trade, Deputy Assistant US Trade Representative Constance Hamilton said. Part of that discussion will focus on which African countries or regional groupings would be ready to engage in FTA negotiations with the United States, the USTR official told a program on the next steps for AGOA hosted by Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif).

AGOA: US government submits waiver request to WTO's Council for Trade in Goods (WTO)

Pursuant to Article IX:3 of the WTO Agreement, the United States requests a waiver of its obligations under paragraph 1 of Article I and paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article XIII of the GATT 1994 through September 30, 2025, to the extent necessary to permit it to provide duty-free treatment under the AGOA to eligible products originating in beneficiary countries. The United States requests the Council for Trade in Goods to give this application for a waiver expeditious and favourable consideration. In the meantime, the United States will promptly enter into consultations, on request, with any interested Member with respect to any difficulty that may arise as a result of the preferential treatment provided under the AGOA.

Circumstances justifying the waiver: Because of the severe and pressing development challenges facing sub-Saharan Africa, these policy objectives cannot be fully achieved through measures consistent with U.S. obligations under GATT 1994. More than 400 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live on less than $1.25 a day, and regional GNI per capita was less than $1,700 in 2013. Average annual GDP growth in the region was 4.1 percent in 2013.

Portugal was the 3rd largest investor in Mozambique during the 1st quarter (Club of Mozambique)

The list for the first quarter, totalling US$500m is led by Spain and China, although together they account for only eight projects, compared to 22 for Portugal, which remains the main foreign job creator, with 28 jobs per US$1 million invested versus an average of 13 for all other countries. Most Portuguese investment (45.5%) was applied in the industrial sector, followed by services (30%) and insurance (14.5%), and concentrated in the South, in the provinces of Maputo and the city of Maputo.

IGC Mozambique Growth Week 2015: some presentations now posted (IGC)

Zimbabwe: French firm to start import testing exercise (The Herald)

French-based standards firm, Bureau Veritas, will begin testing imported products for acceptable standards at the end of this month after the initiative failed to start in May this year. The Consignment Based Conformity Assessment was initially scheduled to start on May 16 2015, with all products regulated by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of Zimbabwe exported into Zimbabwe having to be accompanied by a CBCA certificate. But Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha said yesterday enforcement of the Consignment Based Conformity Assessment exercise would now commence on the 27th of this month and the initial phase of the CBCA would run for six months.

The next and full implementation phase of the standards verification process for all imported goods will commence on November 1, 2015 after the transitional phase period to end of October and thereafter run for four years, Minister Bimha said. Minister Bimha said the exercise had been delayed to allow incorporation and considerations regarding issues to do with pricing or rates levied to importers for their goods and some technical issues that the minister would not discuss yesterday.

From evidence to policy: innovations in shaping reforms in Africa (World Bank)

This four-day learning event, to be held in Cape Town, will bring together policymakers, academics, civil society representatives, and development partners to discuss innovations in the use of evidence to inform policy design in Africa. The event will feature a 2-day conference (July 21-22) and a 2-day training (July 23-24). [Programme]

Data and debates: launch of SmartGov Africa (Democracy in Africa)

This month, SmartGov Technologies Ltd, the Cambridge (UK) based data lab, announced the launch of the SmartGov Africa project. SG Africa was designed to aggregate, geo-reference and enable discussion on all African public data. It is now the largest single pan-African data portal, with 1.2m data-points already available, across 54 African countries. The platform is open for anyone to use.

Financing for Development conference: selected updates

Financing for Development forges ‘New Financial Alliance’ (UN)

DESA briefing note on the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (UN)

Pressure on governments, critical in probing Africa’s stolen funds (UNECA)

Reshaping finance for sustainability: a moment in time (UNEP)

Blended Finance Vol. 1: a primer for development finance and philanthropic funders (WEF)

Financing for Development: US government development priorities

FY16 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations (CGD)

Enlisting the media in regional competition regime (COMESA)

Business writers from select COMESA Member States are meeting in Livingstone, Zambia for the regional sensitization forum on trade competition regime in the region. Immediate former Principal Judge of the COMESA Court of Justice Prof. Samuel Rugege who presented a keynote address said 42 cases has been filed in the Court since its establishment in 1994. He attributed the low number to parties resorting to other dispute resolution mechanism and lack of awareness about the Court's operations.

Reviewing the security situation in the East Africa region: heads of intelligence and security services (African Union)

SEAC workshop on the revision of the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections (SADC)

SADC-COMESA-EAC Climate Change YEAR BOOK 2015: EOI (SADC)

PRARI Second Stakeholder Meeting for SADC: update, project www

Transport emission mapping and monitoring and capacity building in 5 selected African cities (AfDB)

The AfDB wishes to recruit a consultant to carry out a pilot project in 5 Selected Cities based on regional diversification and ongoing/proposed transport projects namely; Abidjan, Rabat, Yaounde, Dar es Salaam and Lusaka to build capacity in concerned government agencies in transport emission monitoring, raise awareness of options for financing low emission transport and facilitate the quantification of the wider benefits of low emission transport.

China launches first World Bank trust fund (World Bank)

President Kim and Finance Minister Lou Jiwei signed an agreement to establish a $50 million fund to help reduce poverty. The World Bank President also met with leaders of the Multilateral Interim Secretariat for Establishing the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to discuss closer collaboration. These initiatives reinforce the growing partnership with China, which already is the Bank’s third-largest shareholder and an important contributor to IDA, the institution’s fund for the poorest, as well as the Global Infrastructure Facility.

The impact of IMF-supported programs on FDI in low-income countries (IMF)

It is common for IMF-supported adjustment programs with low-income member countries (LICs) to project that they will facilitate FDI inflows. The main objective of this paper is to empirically examine this hypothesis. Using an unbalanced panel dataset for 73 low-income countries over the period 1980–2012, and two different econometric methods that address the selection-bias problem, the empirical results robustly show that participating in IMF-supported program is associated with a significant increase in FDI inflows.

Featured infographic: the radical US cargo shift to the East Coast

Expatriates make huge gains from weakening shilling weakens (Business Daily)