AU urges more infrastructure, trans-border access to boost trade

ADDIS ABABA - The African Union Commission (AUC) on Thursday in Addis Ababa urged member states to address infrastructure and trans-border challenges in order to boost intra-Africa Agricultural trade and food security. The commission said that improving infrastructure and liberalising trans border access would boost intra-Africa trade as well as meet the target of the AU Heads of State and Government's commitment made during the Malabo Summit. The African leaders had during the Malabo Assembly committed to tripling intra-Africa trade by 2025 to sustain growth, reduce poverty and boost employment through agricultural trade. The AU Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, Rhoda Peace, made the remarks at the opening of a three-day Regional Strategic and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS) Annual Conference in Addis Ababa. Peace said Africa’s agricultural trade had increased in recent years after decades of decline and trade among African countries had been on the rise. She said ReSAKSS annual report analysis released during the technical session of the conference had indicated a boost in Africans’ ability to access food and the distributing channels to the neediest during hard times. ``The report found that Africa’s agricultural exports accounted for 3.3 per cent of world agricultural trade in 2009-2013, up from 1.2 per cent in 1996-2000 showing a threefold increase. ``Moreover, Africa’s agricultural exports have quadrupled in value terms and doubled in caloric terms. And the share of intra-African trade has doubled: nearly 34 per cent of agricultural exports originating from African countries now go to other African countries,'' she said. The commissioner said the findings were significant to agricultural trade and intra-African trade in ensuring the critical element including the poor and vulnerable were able to remain resilient in the face of economic shocks and severe weather events. ``While the situation is far different from that of the 1960s, when African countries dominated global markets, the recent performance indicates that Africa can become a major player again. `` Countries, however, need to sustain the policies and institutional reforms and scale up the investments that made this change possible,'' she said. The conference attributed the continent’s growth in world agricultural exports to improved trade infrastructure, such as telecommunications, integration in global and regional markets as well as increase in world prices of raw materials. It also found that diversity of crops had helped boost trade because at the end of the 1990s, the top 10 agricultural exports made up 51 per cent of Africa’s total agricultural exports. The report said the African agricultural exports had become more diversified and more competitive with the top 10 agricultural exports accounting for 40 per cent of total exports at the end of 2010. ``Fueled by both economic growth and population growth, agricultural imports have risen considerably faster than exports. ``As a result, the agricultural trade deficit rose from over 1 billion dollars to nearly 40 billion dollars,'' it said. The report highlighted the tremendous challenge facing African countries and the need to deepen the reforms and scale up the efforts that had accelerated exports during the last 10years. It would be recalled that African Heads of State and government during the Malabo Summit in June renewed commitment on efforts to boost competitiveness and trade, in global as well as intra-African markets. [eap_ad_2] The report’s findings showed that African countries have become more competitive in regional markets and that faster growth of demand in these markets has also contributed positively to trade performance by African countries. The findings also showed that declining barriers to regional trade would further boost the recent growth of intra-African trade and allow countries to take advantage of the stabilising effects that often accompany regional trade. ``In the case of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) countries, reducing overall trading costs by 10 per cent would raise regional cereals exports by about 20 per cent on average over the next 15 years. ``The impact would be at least 2.5 times that much in the case of major staples such as roots and tubers,'' it said. It said that raising yields by the same magnitude would have a bigger impact on regional exports, with increases of between 30 to 40 per cent across all commodities. The report recommended that domestic food markets be stabilised by expanding regional trade to buffer shocks to individual countries to mitigate the effects of weather shocks. ``Trade policies should be aimed at reducing transport and other transaction costs and increasing agricultural productivity to improve the livelihoods of the poor and vulnerable to enhance their resilience to shocks. ``Expand markets with better transport infrastructure to make it easier to move crops from surplus to deficit zones. ``Invest in science and technology to raise agricultural productivity and enhance the capacity of domestic agricultural sectors to supply local markets and adjust to shocks,'' it said. It also recommended for the elimination of nontariff cross-border barriers to foster market integration at the domestic, regional and international levels. The report advised countries to invest in social safety net programmes for more conducive policies that would maximise positive short and long term benefits for growth and food security. The conference is organised by the AUC in partnership with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). (NAN) [eap_ad_3]

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