Africa deliberates on how to remove intra-trade barriers

Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina, President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), and Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum on Africa highligting a point during the session. PHOTO | AFP

What you need to know:

  • Experts say it is easier and less costly for foreigners to travel within Africa than it is for Africans, a factor which has affected intra-African trade.
  • Leaders are rooting for a free visa access to all African countries by Africans, to ease movement by the continent citizens.
  • Despite growing trade potential on the African continent, only 11 per cent of intra-regional trade has been registered.

Africa still suffers from a host of trade hurdles which make mobility within the continent difficult.

This emerged at the World Economic Forum which concluded in Kigali on Friday. Experts say it is easier and less costly for foreigners to travel within Africa than it is for Africans, a factor which has affected intra-African trade.

Leaders are rooting for a free visa access to all African countries by Africans, to ease movement by the continent citizens. This is aimed enabling people access African markets and increase trade among African states.

“As we look at the impact of the decline in global commodity prices in Africa, we have to look at regional markets; I believe ease of travel within Africa will reduce the susceptibility to these shocks. Africa needs a bigger sized market, this can’t be fully achieved with the current mobility challenges,” said Mr Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina, the president of African Development Bank.

He said this challenge together with the existing high tariff and non-tariff barriers have made Africa an unfavourable business environment.

“We need to drive a continent-free visa access policy to eliminate challenges associated with visa access and promote talent movement across the bloc; this is why visa openness index was opened” said Mr Adesina.

Despite growing trade potential on the African continent, only 11 per cent of intra-regional trade has been registered, far below other blocs. Comparatively, Asia is trading at 40 per cent and Europe at 70 per cent.

African challenges have been partly attributed to the existing travel bottlenecks among its citizens. Only 13 out of the 55 countries offer visa-free or visa-on arrival access to all Africans, according to the African visa openness report released this year.

Africa’s population is expected to rise to over 2 billion people by 2050.

EXPAND OPPORTUNITIES

This calls for a more integrated continent to garner the needed inclusive growth.

The pressure to expand opportunities for a growing population makes skills and talent mobility, reduction of time, cost and process obstacles to moving freely across the continent critical to empower Africans to make study or job choices that impact on their incomes.

“A more regionally integrated Africa will lead to more growth,” said Dominic Barton, the global managing director McKinsey and company
Players have welcomed the move to rid the continent of barriers, saying they adversely affect their businesses.

“It’s great news for us as operators, all these barriers put up by governments take us back as a business. It (removing barriers) will contribute positively to what we do, it’s a great idea I hope it happens tomorrow” said John Mirenge the CEO of Rwandair.

However he said as the stakeholders foster this campaign, more should be done to also push for liberalization of the skies.

“When working with the bureaucrats and governments, talk about the liberalisation of the skies, we are made less competitive, we are faced with foreign airlines which have more access to African skies than us African airlines,” Mr Mirenge said.