ABUJA, NIGERIA – ECOWAS Ministers in charge of the national tourism sectors in member states have come together to give the tourism in West Africa great boost with the validation and adoption of the regulatory texts of the Tourist Accommodation Establishment in the ECOWAS region, Friday, 7th April 2023. This working document with recommendations was presented to the ministers by tourism experts who spent the last 3 days drafting a well-researched legal framework that covers all aspects of hotel accommodation classification and grading. Mrs. Massandjé Toure-Litse, ECOWAS Commission’s Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture, in her welcome address, on behalf of the President of the ECOWAS Commission, His Excellency, Dr. Omar Alieu Touray expressed her sincere appreciation to the Honarable Ministers for accepting to be part of a historic event in the tourism sector. She also extended ECOWAS’ sincere gratitude to the President of Togolese Republic, His Excellency Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe, for accepting to host this all important meeting as the ECOWAS takes key steps towards adopting relevant instruments to give a boost to our tourism sector in line with emerging trends and hailed the critical role played by the Government of Togo in the integration and economic development of ECOWAS since its establishment which is reiterated by the presence and the support received in the facilitation this meeting from Dr. Lamadokou Kossi Honorable Minister of Culture and Tourism of Togo and his very able team. She further praised the tenacity and commitment of the Member States in the development of tourism industry which will ECOWAS a tourist...

Tanzania and Burundi are planning to build an electrified Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) line that will initially connect the two countries and pass through the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as the countries look to tap the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), the world’s largest single market. The railway line will be about 282 kilometers long and will be built from Uvinza in Tanzania, across the international border along the Malagarasi river to Musongati, and onwards to Gitega, both in Burundi. According to the tender document, the two governments have floated a tender for designing and constructing the railway line and have applied for construction funding from the African Development Bank. The estimated cost of the Tanzania-Burundi railway project is $900 million Reuters reported. The project will be financed jointly by the two countries governments, and the financial details of the project will be released soon. The railway project will be implemented for a period of five years. Upon completion, it will become Africa’s second cross-border electrified rail after Ethiopia and Djibouti launched the continent’s first fully electric multinational railway line in 2016. Tanzania has recently begun an aggressive push to modernize its railway infrastructure, revamping its aging regional rail networks to facilitate cross-border trade. The Turkish firm Yapi Merkezi is currently working on the construction of the 1,457-kilometer SGR line from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro, which is expected to be completed in 2024. Read original article

In Summary The countries are investing heavily in expanding and rehabilitating existing ports as they roll out newer facilities. The Mombasa Port and Northern Corridor Charter is aimed at ensuring Kenya remains a leading gateway to the region. Mombasa could lose out to neighbouring facilities if stakeholders fail on key performance indicators, mainly under the Mombasa Port Charter, its leadership has warned. While some signatories, mainly state agencies, have lived up to the set targets, a number of entities both public and private sector have slowed down on key implementations which could affect efficiency, the Mombasa Port and Northern Corridor Charter steering committee now says. The charter was signed in July 2014, during former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s tenure, where a total of 13 public entities committed to improve movement of cargo from the port into the hinterland. The second edition of the Mombasa Port and Northern Corridor Community Charter 2019 (the Charter), proclaims the desire of the Port and Northern Corridor community to realise the full trade facilitation potential of the port and Northern Corridor. It is the culmination of extensive consultations with private and public sector stakeholders, including government agencies, the business community, civil society organisations and special interest groups, on the upgrading and improvement of logistics services. The Steering Committee for the Charter - comprising the Shippers Council of Eastern Africa (SCEA), the Kenya Maritime Authority, tKenya Ports Authority, Kenya Revenue Authority, Kenya Trade Network Agency, TradeMark East Africa, Kenya Ship Agents Association and the Northern Corridor Transit and Transport...

Ghana has declared intentions to maximise gains from the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) through strengthening of commercial ties with Kenya. As a result, it is planning to establish an Export Trade House (ETH) next month in Kenya as part of measures to promote trade relations between the two countries. When established, the ETH would serve as a special vehicle that specialises in facilitating transactions between a home country and foreign countries. It will be positioned at a central location where Made-in-Ghana products can be shipped, displayed and distributed in Kenya and other countries in East Africa. The trade house is being established because exports have become a tool the government must embrace to improve and promote the country’s products to the global market. To this end, Ghana will organise a three-day business expedition before the trade fair to highlight the goods it plans to export into Kenya. Stakeholders including the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MoTI), the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), the National AfCFTA Coordination Office (NCO) and the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), are working together to organise the exhibition. Trade barriers between the nations of East and West Africa have historically been low because of regulatory restrictions. Nonetheless, many African countries are now trading more independently thanks to the AfCFTA, the largest free trade area in the world. World Bank report According to the World Bank, the African Continental Free Trade Area could deliver far greater benefits in terms of jobs, growth and poverty reduction...

Cape Town, South Africa – The AfCFTA Business Forum is set to take place on 16-18 April 2023 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre in South Africa, under the patronage of H.E. President Cyril Ramaphosa. The forum aims to accelerate the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the world’s largest free trade area in terms of participating countries. The AfCFTA brings together 55 countries with a combined GDP of $3.5 trillion and a market of 1.4 billion consumers. Its aim is to boost intra-African trade, raise Africa’s trading position on the global market, and accelerate economic growth, industrialization, production, and job creation. The AfCFTA Business Forum seeks to create awareness of the current business and investment opportunities in the AfCFTA among Africa’s business community. It also aims to establish a private sector engagement platform for continued consultations on private sector needs in the implementation of the AfCFTA, and promote a private sector-friendly environment, especially for MSMEs led by Women and Youth, to unlock more accessible and affordable access to finance and markets. The forum invites broad participation of Africa’s private sector, strategic investors, financial institutions, investment promotion agencies, business councils, chambers of commerce, multinational corporations, African women and youth business organisations, as well as Heads of States and Government, and AfCFTA Partners. With the completion of phase I of the AfCFTA and components of phase II covering Trade in Goods, Trade in Services, the Dispute Settlement Mechanism, Investments, Competition Policy, and Intellectual Property Rights, the AfCFTA Business Forum...

Summary Queries are being raised about a slowdown in growth of manufacturing value addition within the East African Community bloc Arusha. Queries are being raised over the falling manufacturing value addition (MVA) in the East African Community (EAC) bloc. The trend fell short of the annual growth rate envisaged under the region’s industrialisation drive. “We are not doing well in meeting the aspirations of the regional industrial policy targets,” said Mr Jean Baptiste Havugimana, the EAC director of productive sectors. According to him, MVA growth has slowed down in recent years. The growth rate fell from 5.3 percent between 2005 and 2010 to 4.6 percent between 2010 and 2021. The fall, he further said, was short of the 10 percent annual growth rate envisaged in the EAC Industrialisation Policy (2008-2032). “This is nowhere near the double-digit growth envisioned,” Mr Havugimana told a meeting of the EAC sectoral council on trade, industry, finance and investment. He said that due to the slow pace of MVA growth, relative to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the share of manufacturing in GDP has been contracting. Previously manufacturing contributed more than ten percent of the region’s GDP but has now dropped to less than eight percent. “This is raising doubts about structural transformation through industrialisation,” Mr Havugimana said at the meeting held in Moshi. He challenged the EAC partner states to adopt “revolutionary and innovative” approaches to implementing industrial policies. New approaches in industrial policies, he stressed, can meet the anticipated economic growth in the industrial...

Regulatory authorities in different countries across Africa are pushing for uniform standards for commodities produced on the continent. The move to harmonize standards is part of efforts to increase intra-Africa trade and reduce the tendencies of international markets to reject African products due to standard disparities. This was revealed at a capacity building and training workshop for technical committees on African Standards Harmonisation Model (ASHAM) procedures, which ended on Wednesday, at Golden Tulip Canaan Hotel in Kampala. The three-day event was facilitated by the Africa Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO) and the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS). The event is under the theme Acceleration of the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) Implementation-One Test One Certificate Accepted Everywhere. UNBS executive director, David Livingstone Ebiru said the standards experts, who are responsible for writing the standards across sectors of their respective economies, will review the standards of various commodities for trade across the continent. Ebiru said harmonized standards for products are capable of increasing trade among African countries to 40% from the current 16%. He said an increase in intra-Africa trade will improve the quality of African products, reduce imports to the continent and ensure that trading with other parts of the world is done on Africa’s terms. The experts are representing the different regional economic blocks such as the East African Community (EAC), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). “Currently, standards are harmonized in the regional economic blocks. But Africa does...

The launch of trade capacity-building activities in Tanzania under the WTO Chairs Programme was marked at an event on 31 March at the Trade Policy Training Centre in Africa, an institution within the Eastern and Southern Africa Management Institute. Speaking at the event, Deputy Director-General Xiangchen Zhang said: “We are confident that the appointed team at the Trade Policy Training Centre will be able to deliver with great dedication and enthusiasm and make a meaningful impact in advancing the goals of the Chairs Programme.” The Eastern and Southern Africa Management Institute (ESAMI) is a pan-African management development institute owned by ten member governments. The Chair in Tanzania will seek to help the East African Community overcome impediments to trade growth and development. This year's activities at the Training Centre will focus on issues of relevance to least-developed countries in Africa, including utilization of trade preference and their impact on the development of regional value chains; e-commerce; and trade remedies. The team is led by Professor Caiphas Chekwoti and Professor Tsotetsi Makong, who are experienced in training trade policymakers in both English- and French-speaking Africa. Tanzania's Deputy Minister for Investment, Industry and Trade, Mr Exaud Silaoneka Kigahe, noted that the Chairs Programme will facilitate access to research necessary to inform trade-related decision-making in Tanzania. “As a continent, we appreciate the value of using evidence-based research in synthesising strategies and policies to mitigate the unique challenges that our region and countries face”, he said. “We hope that, through the research activities undertaken by...

Nairobi, Kenya, 29 March 2023 (ECA) - African countries should promote the free movement of people across their borders to boost intra-African trade, says the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Director of Regional Integration and Trade Division, Stephen Karingi, calling for the speedy ratification of the Protocol on free movement of people. The African Union, recognizing the importance of human resource skills to the continent's development, adopted the Free  Movement of Persons Protocol in 2018, which has been signed by 33 Member States. However, only four countries have ratified the Protocol to date. "The state of ratification is disheartening, to say the least, given that the Protocol is aimed at facilitating regional integration in general, and the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), in particular," Mr. Karingi said in Nairobi, Kenya during a two-day Experts' Group Meeting to review a Policy Report on the theme, Free Movement of Persons for Trade: Towards an Accelerated Ratification of the AU Free Movement of Persons Protocol in Support of the implementation of the AfCFTA. The policy report, an outcome of a joint study by the African Union Commission (AUC) and ECA shows the benefits of free movement of persons in relation to the implementation of the AfCFTA and identifies factors behind the slow ratification of the Protocol. The slow ratification of the Protocol has been attributed to a lack of knowledge and appreciation of the benefits of free movement of persons, lack of awareness of the Protocol, lack of political will,...

The private sector’s role is vital to fully unlock benefits of the AfCFTA as it offers huge opportunities for the private sector, financial experts emphasize. On March 20th, the Pan Africa Chamber of Commerce and Industries /PACCI/ hosted a business roundtable on AfCFTA benefits for business. Several representatives from business across Africa and high level officials from regional and international organizations participated on the meeting which aimed to create awareness on the implementation and acceleration of the Africa continental free trade agreement and its benefits. “SMEs accounts for millions of companies operating in Africa therefore building a structure that supports their growth in to inter-Africa trade is crucial while accelerating the implementation of the AfCFTA,” Kebour Ghenna, Executive Director of the chamber stated whilst indicating that over the 90 percent of PACCI members were SMEs. As experts indicate, from the African private sector, which constitutes 90 percent of small and medium enterprises, challenges are faced in conducting cross-border trade due to non-tariff barriers such as complex customs procedures, lack of access to finance, high costs of transportation and logistics, and lack of access to information, among others inadequate infrastructure connectivity, rudimentary productive capacity, and risky or expensive payment systems as some of the barriers to trade. (Photo: Anteneh Aklilu) “We must push our governments and policy makers to accelerate the practical impacts of the agreement which has been rather minimal. We need to do more to put in place facilitation and regulation for export and trading,” said the executive director....