The inaugural chief executive of Trade Catalyst Africa, Duncan Onyango, spoke to Vincent Owino on the reasons behind the formation of the commercial arm of the non-profit Trademark Africa. What are the most pressing issues facing trade in Africa today? It is a fact that as Africans, we trade more with other countries outside the continent than with each other for a variety of reasons. But the main one is because the trade infrastructure has a lot of gaps in it. We have inefficient ports, poor roads, and border crossing takes much longer than it’s supposed to. The trade infrastructure gap is estimated at between $130 billion-$170 billion each year, with no sign of the funding gap diminishing. Also, the regulatory environment in many countries is not conducive. All these, combined with the non-tariff barriers, the net effect is the low trading volumes and export capabilities. Trademark relies heavily on donor funding for its projects, but the money from donors is not enough. We must appreciate the fact that a lot of money is needed, because we are starting from zero when it comes to building trading and export capability. We see a time when there will be less donor money, so the question we need to ask is: who else can pay to build these infrastructures we need for trade? If you turn to governments, their budgets are shrinking and not enough revenues are coming in. So, because the need is still there, we believe that the funding needs...
DUNCAN ONYANGO: Africans can overturn net effect of low trade, export volumes
Posted on: July 20, 2023
Posted on: July 20, 2023