THE share of the
intra-African trade has fallen from 22.4 per cent in 1997 to 11.3 per cent in
2011, the report issued by United Nations on Economic development for Africa
2013 has said. According to the report, even accounting for significant
informal cross-border trade that isn’t captured by statistics, that percentage
is well below other regions, such as Asia, where the average share of
intraregional exports in total exports from 2007 through 2011 was 50 per cent,
and Europe, where it was 70 per cent. The report first issued on 11th
July this year, was launched yesterday in Dar es Salaam and in colourful
ceremony which was attended by academicians, economists, development
stakeholders, civil society institutions and two key professional speakers. The
two speakers were the Executive Chairman of the IPP companies Dr. Reginald Mengi
accompanied by the Chairman of the Confederation of Tanzania Industries (CTI)
Dr. Felix Mosha both of whom delivered their presentations. The report is
quoted as saying that, if Africa does not take serious steps to improve its
economies by now, in some years coming an increased demand for goods in
the continent will be filled by foreign competitors from Europe and Asia. The
report subtitled Intra-African Trade:
Unlocking Private Sector Dynamism, says that efforts to date to spur
jointly reinforcing economic growth on the continent have relied on a
“textbook” and “linear” approach to regional cooperation that does not fit with
Africa’s situation. However, the report suggests
that African countries should adopt a new approach to regional integration,
referred to as “developmental regionalism” which encompasses cooperation among
countries in a broader range of areas than just trade.
The report has mentioned
trade facilitation, to include – for example – investment, research and
development, as well as policies aimed at accelerating regional industrial
development and regional infrastructure provision, such as the building of
better networks of roads and railways. The report further notes that, African governments are embarked on a major
campaign to reduce trade barriers between the continent’s countries, but while
doing this, they had better take vigorous measures to boost their private
sectors, a new UNCTAD report warns, or the gains from this streamlined trading
system will benefit foreign firms more than African firms. Commenting
his views about the report on the Tanzanian context, The Executive Chairman of
the IPP group, Dr. Reginald Mengi noted in his views presented that, failure to
better achievements on trade development and other projects have been exacerbated by continued
grand corruption in the country. Dr. Mengi has once again reiterated his call
on grand corruption saying that, if the government will not tackle the
malpractice, the move will continue to impede trade development links between Tanzania and
outside countries. Tanzania
needs to effectively control grand corruption which he said is growing highly
an aspect that it haunts the minds of trade development stakeholders including
small scale entrepreneurs. He said that a nation cannot develop if it’s not
engaged in the fight over grand corruption, driving his points for the case of Tanzania he
further noted that, the growing phenomenon has become a thorn to the
development of trade and other sectors in general. Elaborating more in this, he
gave an example of the recently passed national budget of Sh. 18 trillion which
he says 80 percent of the money has been allocated top cater for public procurement
and out of these between 20 and 30 percent of the money are taken into pockets
of few individuals whom he termed as coordinators of the move. However, he
noted that, the amount of money stolen about Sh. 3 trillion is equivalent for
the budget of three ministries. In addition to these, the malpractice is
exacerbated by bad performance reports of some institutions such as Railways,
Harbours and Tanesco. “You cannot establish trade links within the environment
of corruption and in view of this, Tanzania
needs to fight the vice in order to unlock the opportunities”, he said adding
that, Tanzania
cannot talk of peace if corruption is growing at an alarming rate. He added
that, wherever there is no peace trade cannot flourish, this is the biggest
enemy and wondered why an institution which stands for Prevention and Combating
Corruption in the country is not mentioned in the recently issued a draft of
the national constitution review. Earlier, the Chairman of the Confederation of
Tanzania Industries (CTI) Dr. Felix Mosha presented the findings of the report,
before its official inauguration and outlined three major impediments which he
said were constraining trade development in Africa
continent. Lack of electricity, poor road and railways infrastructures and poor
technological innovations, lack of reliable markets are among the major
setbacks which lags behind the trade development in Africa.
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