The selection: Wednesday, 5 August

Is the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ report at odds with how business is done in the developing world? (Wall Street Journal)

The Doing Business report “does not summarize even modestly well the experience of firms as reported by the Enterprise Surveys,” Ms. Hallward-Driemeier and Mr. Pritchett write in the latest edition of the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Mr. Pritchett said in an interview that for developing-country policy makers, focusing on rising in the Doing Business ranks could draw scarce resources away from more-substantive reforms that would help the government better administer and enforce business regulations.

SA meets all criteria to remain in AGOA for the next ten years – Minister Rob Davies (GCIS)

“A public hearing is scheduled to take place in Washington DC on Friday where South Africa will make written and oral statement. An AGOA stakeholder meeting was convened by the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) in Pretoria last Friday where we agreed on an approach to the public hearing. Government and other stakeholders agreed to coordinate their messaging to the public hearing,” said Minister Davies. He added that the SA submission will argue that the country is eligible for continued participation in AGOA for five mains reasons:

AGOA: notice of initiation of an out-of-cycle review of South Africa eligibility for benefits (USTR)

US proposes new cargo regulations to boost surveillance at Kenya ports (Business Daily)

The US is proposing radical changes in Kenya’s port cargo handling procedures to help reduce illicit trade and lock out high-risk consignments. The US government wants Kenya to adopt the Cargo Targeting System for cargo processing, the two nations said in a joint communiqué following the recent visit by President Barack Obama. The revelation came ahead of a visit to Washington by a senior Kenyan delegation to discuss best practices in port management.

Uganda: Govt proposes 80% weighbridge compliance (Daily Monitor) 

South Africa: Tourism 2014 report (StatsSA)

This report is based on information on population movements across South Africa’s ports of entry/exit covering the period from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2014. It covers data on arrivals and departures of South African residents and foreign travellers. A detailed analysis of the data on foreign tourists with respect to: mode of travel, purpose of visit, sex and age distribution is covered. The report also describes trends in the overall number of travellers and tourists from 2000 to 2014.

Zimbabwe-SA seal historic tax, fiscal agreement (The Chronicle)

Zimbabwe and South Africa yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding on avoidance of double taxation and prevention of fiscal evasion in a move aimed at protecting tax payers and improving bilateral relations. Minister Chinamasa said the signing of the agreement was significant as it elevates the bilateral relationship between the two neighbouring countries to a new level. The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Willard Manungo, said Zimbabwe and South Africa were currently applying the provisions of the outdated avoidance of double taxation agreement that entered into force in 1965. “It’s clear that the provisions of this agreement are no longer reflective of current international trends in investment, taxation and mobility of labour. It was, therefore, necessary that the two countries initiate the process of re-negotiating this agreement."

Communication costs and trade in Sub-Saharan Africa: 11 August seminar notice (HSRC)

The impact of the cost of information gathering and transmission of messages has often been neglected or has been subsumed under transport costs or border related trade barriers. It is however important to model these costs separately as the share of services in world trade has increased dramatically over the last three decades and advances in information and communication technology (ICT) have made distance seem less important in the setup of trade transactions. The study empirically tests the hypothesis that high communication costs in Sub Saharan Africa have a negative impact on the intensity of trade between African countries.

Regional industrialisation and regional integration: access event papers from the TIPS Annual Forum

G Struyf: Supporting regional food security through enhanced agricultural supply chains

C Phangaphanga: The Malawi poultry industry and regional integration a case of local policy support and value chain growth

B Byiers and J Vanheukelom: Political drivers of Africa's regional economic integration: Lessons from Maputo and North-South corridors

M Muller: Contribution of cooperative management of water resources to regional integration in SADC

Mainstreaming and implementing disaster risk reduction measures in Southern Africa (SADC)

As the SADC sub-region recognises that ‘disasters are a development problem’, mainstreaming disaster risk reduction in development processes is likely to contribute to the resilience of this sub-region to disasters. This report provides an assessment of the extent to which DRR has been mainstreamed and implemented in the SADC sub-region. The specific objectives of the assessment were to:

Carlos Lopes: 'The role of big data in Africa’s regional integration' (UNECA) 

Summarizing information from more than 70 indicators, the index tracks progress and identifies bottlenecks to be addressed, informs policy decisions and helps with future trade negotiations. In support of its implementation, the ECA is training countries and sub-regional entities in Africa on data collection and supervision. Given the novelty of some of the indicators being used, efforts are also being made to standardize databases. The use of ‘big data’ techniques has offered opportunities for the index to be a frontrunner of innovative methodologies. For instance, collection of airline data to provide datasets on flight patterns between airports is used to calculate an aggregate of intra-African flights; or trade tariff data is employed to calculate averages of trade-weighted intra-African tariffs.

CEMAC: common policies of member countries (IMF)

CEMAC growth remained robust in 2014, but the full effect of the oil-price shock will be felt in 2015. Regional growth is estimated to have reached 4.7%, driven by an increase in oil production and the continuation of public investment programs. Nonetheless, growth in 2015 is projected to slow down to 2.8%, mostly because of lower public investment. Inflation remains below the regional inflation criterion of 3%. The regional fiscal deficit is estimated to have widened to 5.0% of regional GDP in 2014 and is projected to deteriorate to 5.7% in 2015.

Mozambique: fourth review under the policy support instrument (IMF)

The economic outlook remains positive. Growth is expected to reach 7% in 2015 and inflation to remain low. Substantial policy adjustment is underway to respond to slippages around the elections and new balance of payment pressures from low commodity prices. Fiscal adjustment, greater exchange rate flexibility and stronger liquidity management are essential to preserve macroeconomic stability and continue to attract foreign investment to support growth, including in the oil and gas sector where projected investments could reach $100bn over the next decade.

President Filipe Nyusi’s state visit to India: selected updates

India, Mozambique to deepen economic engagement

India, Mozambique discuss boosting maritime security cooperation

Text of Prime Minister Modi's statement at media briefing with President Filipe Nyusi

Modi Ocean overdrive with eye on China

Mozambique: Government doubles imported sugar reference price to boost production (Club of Mozambique)

In a measure aimed at ending unfair competition that has left local sugar farmers at a disadvantage, the government for the first time in 15 years yesterday updated the reference price for imported sugar. The update, which came into force yesterday, more than doubles this to US$806.00 per tonne for brown and US$932.00 for the refined product.

Zimbabwe: Second-hand clothes, shoes ban backfires (NewsDay)

Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa was yesterday asked to reverse a ban on the importation of second-hand clothes and shoes or risk his Mid-Term Fiscal Review being rejected by the National Assembly. Members of Parliament from across the political divide said they would not pass the Finance Bill to operationalise Chinamasa’s 2015 Mid-Term Budget Review in its current form because it was insensitive to the poor. Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Finance and Economic Development chaired by David Chapfika (Zanu PF) said the Mid-Term Budget statement failed to attend to poverty reduction issues such as food security and introduce measures to harness revenue into the fiscus.

Reserve Bank governor John Mangudya to present mid-term monetary policy review today (NewsDay)

China experts meet VP Mnangagwa (The Herald)

Fish farming now a big hit in Africa (Inter Press Service)

Faced with nutritional deficits, a number of Africans have turned to fish farming even in towns and cities to complement their diets. In Zimbabwe, an estimated 22,000 people are involved in fish farming, according to statistics from the country’s Ministry of Agriculture. The figure for fish farmers is even higher in Malawi, where some 30,000 people are active in fish farming-related activities, according to the FAO. Fisheries are reported to contribute about 70 percent to the protein intake of the developing country’s estimated 14 million people, most of whom are too poor to afford meat.

Inside NNPC oil sales: a case for reform in Nigeria

Nigeria must urgently reform the way it sells oil to prevent Africa’s biggest crude producer losing billions of dollars of revenue, according to a new report. The approach of the national oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., “suffers from high corruption risks and fails to maximize returns for the nation,” the New York-based National Resource Governance Institute said in a 73-page report published on Tuesday. [Download]

Environmental Goods Agreement trade talks eye August list (BioRes/ICTSD)

The chair of talks designed to liberalise environmental goods trade will compile and circulate a draft consensus list of products slated for tariff cuts in the coming weeks, trade sources confirmed at the close of a negotiating round held last week in Geneva, Switzerland.

World Bank’s Environmental and Social Framework: revised draft (World Bank)

The proposed framework presents a risk- and impact-based approach to protecting the environment and people, and features a strong emphasis on risk management and achieving sustainable development outcomes over the life of projects; broadened social assessment and management of environmental and social risks; greater clarity of the roles and responsibilities of the World Bank and Borrower; increased harmonization with development partners and recognized good international practices; and renewed and strengthened partnerships with borrowers. The proposed revision has evolved significantly from the first draft:

Digital solutions to steer financial inclusion in Africa (AfDB) 

There is growing evidence that digitising payments boosts transaction efficiency, reduces costs and drives financial inclusion. According to Elaine Weidman, Vice-President of CSR at Ericsson Group, DFS can be as much as 75% cheaper than traditional banking in low-income countries. The exponential growth of mobile phone subscriptions in Sub-Saharan Africa, from 90 million to 650 million over the last 8 years, offers considerable opportunities to grow the market for mobile financial services. However several barriers continue to limit this potential, including the lack of standardisation of products, the lack of interoperability between countries and technologies, and inappropriate regulations.

SADC Parliamentary Forum lobbies for creation of a regional legislature (StarAfrica)

Zim, SA, Moz to construct 550km interconnector (NewsDay)

West Africa's alarming growth industry - meth (Reuters)

Kenya-US direct flights set to lower freight cost by 20% (Business Daily)

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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)