Low intra-Africa and regional trade have historically been attributed to tariffs. However, recent evidence shows that non-tariff issues are the main reason for low intra-Africa and regional trade. Intra-Africa trade could significantly increase if governments prioritised addressing trade facilitation challenges and implement trade facilitation measures espoused in the Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) or elsewhere (e.g. national, regional and multilateral instruments). Addressing trade facilitation challenges requires several actions by governments and customs and border agencies. Actions ranging from effective implementation of existing legal frameworks, amendment of existing legislation and regulation to improving the efficiency of procedural or operational issues at the border posts and ports.

Trade facilitation challenges have been examined elsewhere and there is general agreement that they are the major obstacles to intra-Africa and regional trade. This Trade Brief provides recommendations to governments for implementing measures that will facilitate transparency, increase compliance and simplification of cross-border trade procedures and reduce time and costs of doing business across borders. Recently, African governments have adopted an array of temporary measures to facilitate trade in essential food and health supplies during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This Trade Brief commends such measures and provides practical recommendations that can support governments’ efforts to expedite trade during the pandemic and beyond. In certain instances, the present Trade Brief recommends the extension of the temporary measures to facilitate the trade of essential food and medical products adopted during the pandemic. We recommend their integration into existing or new legal frameworks for trade facilitation.

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 author and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

From the end of 2019, as the Covid-19 virus began to spread, countries have implemented various mitigating measures. These vary across countries and include short-term shutting-down of most domestic economic activities, border closures, and testing certification procedures for cross-border transporters.

These restrictions have a significant and often negative impact on the transportation of goods and logistics. South Africa is a transit hub for the transportation of goods between African countries and also between African countries and those further afield. Covid-19 restrictions affect the transportation of goods to South Africa and transit traffic through South Africa. Border closures and delays, changes in demand and supply, and logistics problems such as container shortages and changes in shipping routes require that producers, importers, transporters, and logistic service providers rethink some trade routes.

This Trade Brief examines the impact of Covid-19 restrictions on intra-Africa transit traffic. In particular, the focus is on goods in transit through South Africa. How have Covid-19 restrictions affected the flow of transit traffic through South Africa?

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 author and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

The Protocols to the Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) establish various technical committees to assist with the implementation of the Agreement. When fully and effectively implemented, the Agreement is expected to enhance the prospects of boosting growth, reduce poverty and broaden economic inclusion among the African countries as their tendency to trade with one another increases. Of the fifty-four (54) Member States which have signed the Agreement, thirty-seven (37) had deposited their instruments of ratification as of June 2021, becoming State Parties to the AfCFTA.

This trade brief presents information on Trade Facilitation under the AfCFTA’s Protocol on Trade in Goods. It also focuses on the institutional arrangements (sub-committees) for its implementation. It concludes by briefly examining the contextual and institutional relationship between Trade Facilitation at the continental level under the AfCFTA and the multilateral level under the World Trade Organization (WTO).

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 author and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

In Africa, cross-border road transport carries over 80% of intra-regional and inter-regional trade. It provides a critical link between landlocked countries and international markets, and plays an important role for regional connectivity. Improving regional connectivity is becoming increasingly important to promoting intra-regional trade and intra-Africa trade, and this requires an efficient transport system which enables faster travel, facilitates movement and achieves the goal of smooth movement of goods.

In most cases, road transport is the only mode of transport available connecting inland economic hubs in different countries, thus enabling landlocked countries to participate in the global economic system. Whilst some regional corridors are multimodal (such as the Central corridor), providing both road and rail, others provide both modes only for a section of the corridor (like the Trans-Kalahari corridor). Corridor institutional arrangements have a huge bearing on the performance of corridors, the efficiency of operations and speed at which corridor bottlenecks are addressed. It is therefore important to keep these in check to continuously improve the arrangements with a view to enhance their effectiveness and impact on trade facilitation. This is important towards enhancing the realisation of the objectives of key regional and continental initiatives such as the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

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 author and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

This paper investigates movements in services trade restrictions and their impacts on services trade over an eight-year period (2008-2016). It utilises the latest, most globally inclusive inter-temporal data set available, to draw conclusions about the impacts of shifts in services trade restrictions on the value of trade in services. The dataset covers developed and developing countries, and includes five leading African economies. Both informal and formal quantitative methods are used to draw out insights, the most striking of which is the contrast in the results between developed and developing countries.

For all countries, the aggregate level of services trade restrictions has tended downward (liberalisation), but this shift was only associated with boosts to services trade (both imports and exports) among developing countries (including Africa). Developed countries, which are presumably closer to the limits of services sector development, did not experience noticeable boosts to services trade values as a result of on-going liberalisation.

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 author and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

Cross-border road transport faces numerous barriers which impede seamless and efficient movements and trade flows. Many of the barriers can be directly linked to the fragmentation that exists in the regulatory regimes, unharmonised legislations, regulatory requirements and technical standards implemented in different countries. The instruments implemented by the countries vary in scope and finer text, which further compounds the complexities emanating from multiple agreements which they use to regulate cross-border road transport.

There are a few significant initiatives and programmes that were commissioned which have potential to address some of the road transport regulatory issues affecting cross-border road transport in the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region, and examples include the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) and the Tripartite Transport and Transit Facilitation Programme (TTTFP). The need to address the regulatory fragmentation is also heightened in the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, which effectively became operational in the beginning of 2021.

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 author and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

On the last day of December 2020, the South African Department of Home Affairs published two draft policies for public comment. The one is a Draft One-stop Border Post Policy, the other a Draft Official Identity Management Policy. The publication of the draft policies followed not long after the signing into law of the Border Management Authority Act by the South African President in July 2020.

The connection between the One-stop Border Post (OSBP) Policy and the Border Management Authority (BMA) Act is clear. From a border management perspective, the Identity Management Policy (IMP) will be relevant if the state-of-the-art personal identification system envisaged by the policy is given effect to. As much is foreseen by the Draft IMP when it refers to ‘interoperability across borders’, ‘integration across borders’ and to 2024, when the identification system ‘interfaces with systems of neighbouring countries – piloted through the one-stop border post initiative’. The Draft OSBP Policy, for its part, should be more direct in its recognition of the IMP than the casual ‘South Africa is in the process of modernising its identity management systems’. The IMP should be mentioned by name, if only to show a level of integration in the thinking of the Department of Home Affairs – and the Government.

This Working Paper is aimed at the Draft OSBP Policy. The Policy is to be welcomed because talk and decisions about border management in South Africa have a running history with slow results amidst ever-stuttering border control, shown up in extreme fashion by the Covid-19 pandemic.

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 author and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

Borders and border control matter. A starker reminder of this simple truth could hardly be found than the Covid-19 pandemic. It caused worldwide ‘lockdowns’ and border closures that disrupted the movement of persons, goods and services and caused more economic harm than the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. Regular reports of the International Air Traffic Association (IATA) paint a grim picture of the losses suffered by airlines when closed borders hit international travel and air cargo for the better part of 2020. Borders also matter in facilitating trade. This much is trite. Smooth border procedures save money, reduce traders’ costs and ensure proper revenue collection for the authorities. Yet, while much has been done and achieved by various international organisations in establishing and refining best international practices for border management, challenges remain.

Against this backdrop South Africa’s recent creation of a single border management authority is of more than passing interest. South Africa is a dominant economy on the African continent. The question this paper will attempt to answer, is whether, on a proper reading of the Border Management Authority Act 2 of 2020, the concerns are valid. The intention is not an in-depth section-by-section analysis, but rather whether the text conceptually reflects a workable model.

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 author and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

The Independent Communication Authority of South Africa’s Complaints and Compliance Committee (CCC) found on 26 September 2019 that retail and courier service provider, PostNet Southern Africa, had contravened s15(1) of the Postal Services Act, in that it had operated a reserved postal service (transporting postal items of 1kg or less) without a licence. PostNet’s licence enables it to operate only in the unreserved sector.

This has the potential to be a major blow to the small, but fast-growing e-commerce market in South Africa and has the potential to impact on cross-border e-commerce. It also brings into question the ongoing rationale of the universal service obligation (USO) and in South Africa its accompanying statutory monopolies.

The CCC recommended that the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) order PostNet to cease the illegal behaviour. The decision was issued 11 November 2019 and PostNet had 90 working days to comply. This meant the effective date was 17 March 2020. However, this was suspended by a High Court interdict obtained by PostNet on 7 March 2020. PostNet have formally applied to have the decision reviewed by the High Court and SAEPA will apply to be a co-applicant in the review proceedings.

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 author and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

The cost of trade is mainly associated with tariffs and non-tariff costs. Although there are many reasons why these costs are high, minimising trade costs is to the benefit of importers, exporters and consumers due to the reduction in transaction costs which leads to lower prices. While concerted efforts through bilateral, regional and multilateral negotiations over the last 20 years have resulted in a decline in the cost of tariffs, non-tariff trade costs have increased, especially for countries in southern Africa.

There are many reasons why trade costs may be higher than they need to be; these include geography, the trade policies of a country and trading partners, the quality of transport infrastructure, inefficiency of logistics services and weaknesses in economic governance. Accordingly, an important challenge for trade facilitation efforts is to identify the major sources of trade costs at any given point in time.

In most cases, the non-tariff trade cost associated with trade among southern African countries is higher than the non-tariff trade costs associated with trade between countries in southern Africa and countries farther afield. These non-tariff trade costs arise from trade facilitation challenges along the whole supply chain, from production to the delivery of the goods and include the cost of inadequate infrastructure, inefficient border operations, quality control inspections, roadblocks, quantitative restrictions and additional trade charges and varying domestic regulations. These factors contribute to the low levels of trade among countries in the region.

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 author and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.