Notizie

UN Global Report for Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation shows African countries are doing well on trade facilitation

Martedì 12 Dicembre 2023 08:34

There are no translations available.

The Global Report for Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation is an annual report published by the United Nations that analyses the progress in facilitating trade and on digital trade in 163 countries from different regions of the world. The report recognizes the critical role that trade facilitation plays in supporting sustainable development, by enabling more efficient and transparent trade procedures, enhancing the resilience of global supply chains and decreasing overall trade costs. The 2023 edition of the report evaluates 60 trade facilitation measures (from the 58 of the 2022 edition), classified into 4 groups: 1) general trade facilitation; 2) digital trade facilitation; 3) sustainable trade facilitation and a residual one (4), called ‘other trade facilitation’. Each of such groups is further categorized into 11 subgroups covering both binding and non-binding measures embedded in the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), as well as measures that go beyond the scope of the WTO TFA. The subgroups, in turn, are categorized in individual measures (ex. publication of existing import-export regulations on the Internet) that in the case of binding measures included in the WTO TFA, show the relevant article of the agreement that regulates the measure (ex., in the case of publication of existing import-export regulations on the Internet, the relevant TFA article is art. 1.2).

3rd PAFTRAC Africa CEO Trade Survey Report reveals African companies are not receiving enough support to seize AfCFTA's opportunities

Ultimo aggiornamento Mercoledì 14 Febbraio 2024 13:22

There are no translations available.

On 21 November 2023 there was the virtual launch of the third PAFTRAC Africa CEO Trade Survey Report. Despite the report is not feely available online (it can be however obtained by filling this form), we provide here a summary of the main findings of such report drawn from its official presentation. PAFTRAC is the acronym of Pan-African Private Sector Trade and Investment Committee, an organization that gathers a series of stakeholders from both the public and private sector to deliberate on policy issues, like trade across the continent, so to help to guide the formation of these policies at continental level. PAFTRAC elaborates annual reports where it analyses the perceptions of African Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) about the future economic outlook of Africa. All the editions of the report also make an analysis of the expectations of African businesses regarding the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

PAPSS for dummies

Venerdì 08 Dicembre 2023 08:43

There are no translations available.

The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) is a centralized payment, clearing and settlement system for intra-African trade payments jointly developed by the AfCFTA Secretariat and Afreximbank which has been rolled out end of September 2021. It aims at streamlining and securing money flows across African borders by simplifying transactions made by using one of the 42 local currencies that are currently adopted in the continent. The system allows traders to complete these transactions in almost real-time (in less than two minutes) for a low fee. A recently published article explains in simple terms why this system has been developed and what are the advantages for African traders, along with its challenges. We will try to further simplify its content to explain the main reasons that are at the basis of the functioning of the PAPSS.

AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol workshop ongoing in Ethiopia

Mercoledì 06 Dicembre 2023 09:05

There are no translations available.

Today, 6 December 2023, a workshop was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) and the AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol that is under negotiation. The purpose of the workshop was to help businesses in Ethiopia (especially those from the ICT sector) to understand the AfCFTA and the Digital Trade Protocol in particular, so to prepare them to seize the opportunities offered by this regulation to expand their operations to other African markets.

Processed critical minerals as an opportunity for the industrialization of Africa

Lunedì 04 Dicembre 2023 19:12

There are no translations available.

The global run towards a low-carbon economy has brought to the fore the importance of several minerals judged critical to this transition. These minerals include lithium, cobalt, graphite, manganese, and others essential to producing clean energy technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines, rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), and grid battery storage. Developing countries hold large reserves of these minerals, about one quarter of them being concentrated in Africa. Among the countries that are rich of such minerals, there is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which produces about 70 per cent of cobalt ore worldwide, mainly directed to China, that is particularly voracious of such material. According to the UNCTAD technical note on critical minerals, the demand for some of such minerals is expected to increase rapidly. The estimates are a 115 per cent growth for the cobalt and 454 per cent for lithium in the period from 2022 to 2030.