Intra african trade pdf

Yet despite limited complementarity in their current trading patterns, and high tariff and nontariff costs in some regions, the intensity of intraregional trade in Africa is higher than expected.

Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor Pages: Publisher s : international food policy research institute ifpri. Cisse, Fatou; Kurtz, Julie E. The signing of the AfCFTA in Kigali comes at a time when the benefits of trade are actively contested, and global powers that traditionally promoted trade as a crucial driver of growth are now calling into question its very tenets.

This apprehension is not without cause. It is broadly recognized that, while globalization and trade produced the impressive economic expansion of the past three decades, the gains have not been fairly distributed. The World Bank population-weighted Gini index shows that inequality rose steeply between and and declined only moderately by Although global poverty has fallen, prosperity has not been fully shared.

Can Africa do better with trade? The share of intra-African exports as a percentage of total African exports has increased from about 10 percent in to around 17 percent in , but it remains low compared to levels in Europe 69 percent , Asia 59 percent , and North America 31 percent. This is an important reason to expect that trade will be a key driver of growth in Africa. Alternatively, the share of intra-African trade would increase by nearly 40 percent to over 50 percent, depending on the ambition of the liberalization, between the start of the implementation of the reform and Recent evidence by ECA shows that when African countries trade with themselves they exchange more manufactured and processed goods, have more knowledge transfer, and create more value.

In fact, manufactured goods make up a much higher proportion of regional exports than those leaving the continent— The real test of the AfCFTA, however, will be how quickly African countries can accelerate export diversification and product sophistication and make trade more inclusive. Trade diversification of exports is important as it allows countries to build resilience to movements in demand, due to economic downturns in importing countries but also price dips.

In the case of commodity exporting countries it supports a shift from an over dependence on commodities to higher-value added products and services. It is also productivity enhancing. Between and , as most fastgrowing countries in the world diversified their economies, most African countries instead relied on rents from extractive industries.

Figure 6. Export diversification for the continent improved only marginally between and Exports from Central and Northern Africa became increasingly more concentrated, and even countries with diversified exports like Morocco and South Africa lost ground.

In contrast, most East Asian economies were able to diversify exports at a rapid pace and converge to the levels of China and Korea Figure 6. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website.

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