Rules of Origin (RoO) aim at avoiding the practice of introducing into preferential trade areas products originating from third countries through the territory partner that applies the lowest tariff, from where they are shipped to the destination country, thereby circumventing the higher tariffs of the latter. In addition to general rules describing the basic criteria to be used to determine the origin of goods, Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) also contain a series of rules called Product-Specific Rules (PSR), also known as “list rules”, which describe the minimal working or processing operations that must be carried out on non-originating materials used in the manufacture of a certain product, so that the latter can obtain the originating status of one of the PTA partners.

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A common theme underlying the recommendations that are usually addressed to African countries to stimulate the structural transformation of their economies and increase resilience is the need for export diversification. A study published by UNCTAD in 2022 argued that Africa is the second least diversified geographical region in the world (after Oceania), hosting economies such as Guinea-Bissau that exports only 178 product lines in total. A new paper, always from UNCTAD, identifies the sectors offering the greatest opportunities for export diversification and that can therefore drive productivity and production growth in the continent. The study argues that the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) gives new momentum to promote export diversification at the continental level by providing a larger market and reducing trade costs, revealing that the product diversification potential greatly varies from country to country, but with some commonalities.

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