The selection: Tuesday, 8 September

Mauritius Declaration on Blue Economy (IORA)

That the Member States of IORA will be guided by the following principles in our shared goal to foster the sustainable development of the Blue Economy in the Indian Ocean Region: [Download]

Mauritius: PM says ocean economy can create 25000 jobs, $600m of investments

IORA presentations: Day 1, Day 2

Julie Bishop’s address to Indian Ocean Dialogue (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

The inaugural Indian Ocean Dialogue, hosted by India’s leading think tank the Observer Research Foundation in Kochi last year, was a landmark moment for IORA. We are proud to be hosting the second Indian Ocean Dialogue in Perth today. Building mechanisms for closer cooperation through fora such as the Indian Ocean Dialogue can, and should, act as a safeguard against such disputes arising, and, help better manage differences where they do arise. That’s why our engagement and cooperation through organisations such as IORA really does matter.

COMESA trade experts meeting underway in Lusaka

Trade and Customs experts from COMESA Member States begun meeting in Lusaka ahead of the Policy Organs meeting scheduled for December this year. This is the 31st Trade and Customs Committee meeting and will take four days discussing progress reports on the implementation of trade and Customs programmes. Latest provisional figures show that intra-COMESA exports increased by 2% from US$9.9bn in 2013 to US$10.1bn in 2014. On the other hand, intra-COMESA imports dropped by 4% from US$11bn in 2013 to US$10.6bn in 2014. However, Dr Cheluget noted that intra-COMESA trade was higher than what is recorded but due to the substantial level of trade conducted by the small scale cross-border traders it was a challenge to capture all the trade that takes place. He urged member States to honour their obligations under the Free Trade arrangement and refrain from arbitrary re-imposition of duties.

Among the issues to be covered in the four days meeting include progress on the Simplified Trade Regime with regard to DR Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia; the functioning of the Free Trade Area as well as progress towards a Customs Union and Common Market. Other topics in the programme are Regional Payment and Settlement System (REPSS), update on the tripartite Free Trade Area, the Regional Customs Transit Guarantee (RCTG) and the performance of the sugar safeguards granted to Kenya by the COMESA Council of Ministers in March this year.

Tripartite FTA’s sugar industries vow to eliminate trade associated problems (Swazi Observer)

In a bid to eliminate possible problems associated with sugar trade in Africa’s new trade agreement, the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA), sugar industries of the bloc have resolved to speak in one unified voice. This come amidst concerns that though the new trade game changer was bringing a handful of benefits to the African continent, it has implications for sugar trade.

Rita Kavashe: 'Colonial boundaries continue to stifle intra-Africa trade' (The EastAfrican)

What this means is that businesses that operate across borders in Africa often spend as much time tackling cross-border bureaucracy as they do working on their core business. [The author is managing director of General Motors East Africa]

Rwanda: Sluggish service sector impacts goods production (The EastAfrican)

Service and industrial sectors registered sluggish growth in the second quarter of this year even though the overall performance of the economy is on track to achieve the projected 6.5%. Service and industrial sectors recorded turnover of 6% in the second quarter of this year compared with 20.1% recorded over the same period last year. According to the August Monetary Policy and Financial Stability statement, the service sector showed a slow-paced growth of 1.1% in the second quarter of this year compared with a 22.4% registered over the same period last year. [Download]

Namibia's debt went up (The Namibian)

The total Namibian debt, comprising domestic and foreign government, corporate and household debt, has grown by 1,69% in July 2015 to N$111,82 billion, and up 18,32% when compared to debt levels a year ago. This is according to the latest report of Bank of Namibia's monthly statistics. This, according to the report, represents a total debt to GDP ratio of 70,70%.

Capitalism 101 lesson for Zambia, DRC as Glencore kills their copper goose (BizNews)

Capital is scarce, cautious and unfeeling. Nobody likes to waste it. Least of all those entrusted with looking after it on behalf of others. Those hard facts are being absorbed in Zambia and the DRC this morning after Glencore’s announcement it is to suspend about a quarter of the copper produced by those countries. That decision will eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes and kill thousands of jobs. Where the well-resourced Glencore goes, expect other mining companies to follow.

Private sector matters: latest GREAT Insights issue (ECDPM)

Private sector matters for development. And the good news is that they are now explicitly recognised in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For this issue of GREAT Insights we have gathered perspectives from various sources working in the private sector.

Payment developments in Africa (KPMG)

In this payments study, we have profiled the payments systems and developments in three of our key markets in Africa – Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. We have also explored payment developments in Brazil as comparative study given the similarities in demographics and financial inclusion. To supplement our study we have explored two additional subjects which are relevant in the development of payments within the African region:

Kofi Annan's keynote address to the Ambrosetti Forum: 'Africa too big to fall' (Pulse)

So, overall, our continent is moving in the right direction. But progress remains uneven, and we cannot ignore the many serious challenges still facing Africa. I see six key challenges that will determine Africa’s future place in the world order: demography; inequality; infrastructure; agriculture; integration; and leadership.

Christine Lagarde’s keynote address to W20 launch: 'Delivering on the promise of 2025' (IMF)

Today’s launch is timely. At their summit meeting last November, the G20 pledged to reduce the gap in women’s labor force participation by 25% by the year 2025 — which would have the benefit of creating an estimated 100 million new jobs for the global economy. That was The Promise of 2025. Today, I want to focus on how to deliver on that promise. Certainly, it represents a major challenge. But with so much attention focused on gender equity — by the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals this year, and by the G20’s pledge from last year - we clearly have a unique moment of opportunity. We know that empowering women boosts economic growth. For example, we have estimates that, if the number of female workers were to increase to the same level as the number of men, GDP in the United States would expand by 5%, by 9% in Japan, and by 27% in India. [W20 www]

Starting today, in Istanbul: Inaugural symposium on Islamic economics and finance (World Bank)

Global manufacturing output expected to rise despite declining trend in China, says UNIDO report

Global manufacturing production is expected to maintain a steady rise in 2015 despite the declining trends observed in key emerging industrial economies, especially in China. World manufacturing value added is likely to grow by 3.5% during 2015 according to mid-year estimates produced by UNIDO. However, regional conflicts, especially in the Middle East and North Africa, and financial instability in Europe, may adversely affect the growth figures. The manufacturing growth rates for the second quarter of 2015 depict a mixed picture for both industrialized and developing economies. In the US manufacturing has benefitted from falling oil prices while Euro zone manufacturing products became more competitive as a result of a weaker Euro in the global market. Manufacturing output in Japan, the Republic of Korea and Singapore remained in decline. [Download]

2015 Congress of African Economists: Industrial policy and economic performance (AU)

The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015 (UN News Centre)

While the world's forests continue to shrink as populations increase and woodlands are converted to agriculture and other uses, over the past 25 years, the rate of net global deforestation has slowed down by more than 50%, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report published today. Some 129 million hectares of forest – an area almost equivalent in size to South Africa ¬– have been lost since 1990, according to FAO's most comprehensive forest review to date, The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015. It covers 234 countries and territories and was presented at this week's World Forestry Congress, which kicked off today in Durban, South Africa. [Download]

XIV World Forestry Congress, in Durban: 7 September highlights

Government subsidies for agriculture may exacerbate deforestation, says new UN report (UNEP)

An estimated 80% of global deforestation occurs as a direct result of agricultural practices. Government subsidies, estimated at $200bn annually, are often the key underlying drivers of forest loss worldwide, with policy makers rarely recognizing their impact, says a new United Nations brief. The report, entitled 'Fiscal incentives for agricultural commodity production: options to forge compatibility with REDD+', explores ways of aligning government subsidies and other fiscal instruments with the objectives of REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries).

SADC on drought alert (Southern African News Features)

Most economies in SADC are largely dependent on climate conditions, and any reduction or increase in rainfall often has a negative effect on socio-economic development. For example, Zimbabwe's GDP dropped by three percent and eight percent after the 1983 and 1992 droughts respectively. In South Africa, the 1992 drought induced a reduction of the agricultural GDP by about ZAR 1.2 billion and caused a 0.4 to 1.0 percent loss in economic growth.

Zimbabwe to engage creditors in Lima (The Herald)

Zimbabwe is intensifying engagement with global creditors to seek out an accommodation on debt arrears and is targeting key international financiers on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the multilateral institutions in Lima next month. Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa expects that an accommodation with the creditors will open access to international capital. Minister Chinamasa told a press briefing with visiting IMF Africa Group 1 Constituency executive director Ms Chileshe Mpundu Kapwepwe that engagement is intended to get to an accommodation with the creditors so that Zimbabwe could start enjoying benefits of membership with global financial institutions.

Govt meets IMF targets (NewsDay)

Namibia: Some of the food we import and their values (New Era)

BRICS Agro-Business Forum: update (dti)

EAC Monetary Affairs Committee: communique

Lesotho youths to participate in SADC agri-business forum (StarAfrica)

Southern Africa moves on Sendai Framework (Common African Position)

The league of African natural gas producers — where one country is set to turn regional industry on its head (M&G Africa)

The cost of road infrastructure in low and middle income countries (World Bank)

The connections between transport infrastructure and economic development have been extensively analyzed in previous research, but little is known about the cost of infrastructure investments in poor countries. This paper examines drivers of unit costs of construction and maintenance of transport infrastructure in low and middle income countries and documents that: [The authors: Paul Collier, Martina Kirchberger]

The middle-income trap turns ten (World Bank)

Since we introduced the term “middle-income trap” in 2006, it has become popular among policy makers and researchers. In May 2015, a search of Google Scholar returned more than 3,000 articles including the term and about 300 articles with the term in the title. This paper provides a (non-exhaustive) survey of this literature. The paper then discusses what, in retrospect, we missed when we coined the term. (The authors: Indermit S. Gill, Homi Kharas]

Free trade agreement between Mexico and Central America - Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua (Committee on Regional Trade Agreements, WTO)

This report, prepared for the consideration of the Free Trade Agreement (goods and services) between Mexico and Central America - Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua has been drawn up by the WTO Secretariat on its own responsibility and in full consultation with the Parties. The factual presentation reproduces as closely as possible the terminology used in the Agreement and in the comments provided and does not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the Secretariat of such terminology.

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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)