The Agriculture Export Council (AEC) is working on the preparation of marketing and consumer studies for the African markets and is expected to finish them in May. The AEC also intends to raise exports of the sector to $2.26bn in 2017, up from $2.146bn in 2016, with an expected growth of 5%. Head of the AEC, Abdel Hamid Demerdash, said that the African market is important and promising for the future of Egyptian crops, where there are many potential large markets. He added that the studies are based on exploiting the joint trade agreements between Egypt and the rest of the African countries, which will contribute to entering these markets with the help of intact economic trade plans.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with regional trade facilitator TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) to improve cross border trade and enhance trade links between the country and East Africa Community (EAC) member states. The government of the Netherlands has committed $6.7 million to kick-start the projects. TMEA will invest in projects involving already available resources such as water transport, simplifying trade processes through training and facilitating adoption of ICT around Eastern DRC. They will comprise dredging and rehabilitation of Kalundu Port on Lake Tanganyika; capacity building and implementation of Integrated Border Management Systems on the border crossings in Rusizi between Rwanda and Bukavu; rehalibitation of the Ports of Kasenyi on the DRC side and Ntoroko in Uganda; as well as infrastructure work at the border crossing at Goli, Uganda and Mahagi, DRC.
For the fourth consecutive year since 2013, East Africa remained the fastest growing sub-region in 2016 on the back of agricultural growth, an emergent manufacturing sector, improved public spending on infrastructure and resilient household consumption, among others. This is according to the 2017 Economic Report on Africa (ERA2017) recently launched in Dakar, Senegal. The report examines how to harness the opportunities from rapid urbanisation to speed industrialisation and accelerate structural transformation. It also identifies and analyses the drivers, enablers and policy levers for strengthening linkages between industrialisation and urbanisation.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has provided over 30 million U.S dollars to support South Sudan’s membership in the African trade, insurance and development body and also strengthen electricity distribution networks. AfDB said in a statement on Thursday evening it has approved 18.15 million U.S. dollars to Juba to help with required resources to support its membership in the African Trade Insurance (ATI) and Trade and Development Bank (TDB). AfDB also approved a supplementary loan of 14.57 million dollars to rehabilitate and expand the electricity distribution networks in the South Sudanese capital Juba.
South African group Shoprite plans to invest US$571.7 million in the expansion of its supermarket and distribution network in Angola under an investment contract signed with the Technical Unit for Private Investment (UTIP). The project involves opening 15 shopping centres over the next five years, 22 supermarkets (three already in operation since 2015), a warehouse and two residential structures for staff, as well as improvements in four supermarkets. The investment will cover 11 of Angola’s 18 provinces and includes the creation of 5,613 jobs for Angolans, of which 3,278 in Luanda.
A key matter before the Pacific Islands Forum economic ministers who are meeting in Suva is how to set up a regional finance facility. The ministers have had the idea of such a facility before them for several years as they look to ways to pay for development in the region. Don Wiseman spoke with the Forum's trade commissioner to China, David Morris, who's at the meeting and began by asking if the ministers have in mind an agency like a Pacific version of the Asian Development Bank.
On Tuesday, March 7, the ASPI Independent Commission on Trade Policy released its new report, Charting a Course for Trade and Economic Integration in the Asia-Pacific, at the Embassy of Australia in Washington, D.C. The event featured a panel of speakers, including report coauthors Wendy Cutler and Peter Grey, three Asia-Pacific ambassadors to the U.S., and moderator Shawn Donnan of the Financial Times.
The ability of sugar industry in the region to survive after the removal of production quotas in the European Union (EU) on 30 September, 2017, will depend on improved competitiveness and pragmatic diversification options, according to a Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat official. The end of EU's quota management for sugar is expected to lead to a fall in prices towards the international sugar price and a decrease in sugar imports from the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, with particular impact on Caribbean producers. In an address on 23 March to the opening of a regional policy workshop in Kingston, Jamaica, that addressed the Caribbean Sugar Industry Post-2017, CARICOM Secretariat programme manager, agriculture and industry, Nisa Surujbally, said that securing more remunerative markets, value addition and an enabling policy regime within the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) were also very important to the industry's survival.
Between 26 March and 11 April 2017, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences, Flavia Schlegel, is visiting Samoa, the Cook Islands, New Zealand and Fiji. High on her agenda will be a ministerial meeting on 29 and 30 March in Apia, Samoa, with representatives of 13 developing Pacific island nations
Western multinationals used cheaper labour in underdeveloped countries to manufacture products that relied on inputs from all over the world and technologies developed in their more expensive labour markets. Studies now suggest these advantages are being lost. Labour is no longer as cheap in many places.