Africa
Canada’s Minister of international trade, Ed Fast explains the country’s strategic shift to link development aid with private sector investments.
China’s direct investment in Africa increased from $1.44 billion to $2.52 billion, with an annual growth of 20.5 percent from 2009 to 2012, says a new white paper from the Chinese government
One major US-Africa issue was unresolved as Air Force One left Tanzania’s tarmac: the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a tariff-free trade deal that was devised during Clinton’s administration and expires in 2015, writes James Reinl for Al Jazeera.
This report is based on the research done by FEMNET to assess the extent to which trade arrangements between African countries and the European Union facilitate African women’s economic empowerment and realization of their economic rights.
At a time when the US was struggling to stay on its two feet in the heat of a looming economic meltdown in 2008, were hopes of better trade deals with Africa unrealistic when President Barack Obama was elected into office?
The World Bank’s Chief Economist for Africa, Shantayanan Devarajan has added his voice to the call on African countries to reject the Economic Partnership Agreements that the European Union is currently trying to force on them.
The President of the African Organization for Standardization maintains that SADC, ECOWAS and EAC will continue to exist alongside the new African Free Trade Area.
Three regional economic communities (Recs) have taken the lead as Africa seeks to remove trade barriers by 2017.
It cannot be Uhuru yet for Namibia and its partners, or should one say fellow downtrodden countries united in the economic bloc of the African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) countries.
China has pledged $20bn (£12.8bn) in credit for Africa over the next three years, in a push for closer ties and increased trade.
The UN Conference on Trade Development (UNCTAD) says it will offer assistance with three elements of the newly adopted African Union (AU) action plan on intra-African trade.
African governments once rushed into signing bilateral investment treaties to encourage FDI. Lawyers are now calling for new models.
African heads of state have ambitious plans to create a free trade zone, encompassing 26 countries and more than 600 million people on the continent. But economic experts warn the project is a bold step that comes with a plethora of legal, administrative and political hurdles. Others suggest the plan might be a pie in the sky.
The ACP and LDC cane sugar suppliers express their profound concern and dismay at the Commission’s proposals in respect of the elimination of sugar quotas in the context of the CAP reform announced on 12 October 2011.
While globally trade agreements are more and more about linking production chains between countries and continents, Africa remains locked in a struggle to overcome the colonial legacy of fragmentation, trade experts say.
A quite amazing event took place in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, on August 29 and 30. Two hundred representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from China and 19 African countries held a China-Africa People’s Forum.
It is not certain that an African free trade area will further regional integration or deepen the existing inequality between countries.
Southern African nations have taken steps towards an envisaged $1 trillion (R6.9 trillion) African free trade area but investment data linked to trading indicates a lot of commitment and work lies ahead to achieve the goal, particularly for South Africa as a continental leader.
On his trip to South Africa yesterday, David Cameron talked of the need to go beyond debt cancellation and aid "to make African free trade the common purpose of the continent". He lamented there has never once been "a march or a concert to call for … an African free trade area". He pointed to the need for more inter-African trade to facilitate the growth that would mean "businesses growing, new jobs on offer, families on the up, living standards transformed".
