Posted on July, 19, 2016 at 09:47 am
The Comesa Secretary-General, Sindiso Ngwenya, spoke to Dorothy Nakaweesi on the bloc’s agenda, its position on issues before the World Trade Organisation, the Economic Partnership Agreements with the EU and progress in trade.
Excerpts:
Did Comesa have a position at the just concluded World Trade Organisation Summit in Nairobi?
As a regional organisation, Comesa did not have an agenda for the 10th WTO Ministerial Conference. However, its member states are also members of the WTO.
Issues of interest to African countries included the conclusion of the multilateral negotiations within the mandate of the Doha Development Agenda, special and differential treatment as well as implementation of the services waiver.
Is Comesa satisfied with the progress of EPA negotiations between the EU and member states?
In general, the progress of Eastern and Southern African (ESA) EPA negotiations with the EU has been fairly satisfactory, although rather slow considering that other regions within Africa — Ecowas, SADC and EAC — have already concluded their EPAs with the EU.
It should however be noted that the progress of ESA-EPA negotiations in the past proceeded along two tracks: one track relating to the ESA Interim EPA which was initialled by four out of 11 member countries of the ESA group. The second pertains to the rest of the group.
However, the whole ESA group is now engaged in an effort to consolidate the two processes in a manner that can allow all the 11 members of the ESA group to negotiate a comprehensive full EPA with the EU on a collective basis. The slow pace was attributed to differences in levels of preparations of member states to engage in active negotiations as a group.
One of the challenges regional trading blocs face is multiple membership. How has this affected your operations?
Member states of Comesa also belong to other regional trading blocs, for instance four are partner states of EAC, while another eight are also member states of SADC. While multiple memberships pose some challenges of implementation, they also provide some definite advantages. One of the advantages is cross-learning, where countries can utilise what they have learnt in one regional economic community (REC) to negotiate in another.
Multiple memberships have not affected the operations of Comesa as member states implement programmes in each of the RECs they are a members of.
What are you doing to harmonise Comesa, SADC and EAC trade tariff differentials?
The three are negotiating a Tripartite Free Trade Area, the Agreement which was signed by the Heads of State and Government of the Tripartite Countries on June 10 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. The tripartite provides for tariff liberalisation among its partner states.
When a full FTA has been attained, the tariffs for intra-tripartite trade will be zero per cent while each member state will have the freedom to charge its Most Favoured Nation tariff rates for products originating in non-tripartite countries. At the FTA level of integration, there is no effort to harmonise trade tariff differentials; the harmonisation is for tariffs on intra-tripartite trade.
Rich countries continue to subsidise their farmers while demanding a separate set of rules for the developing world. What is Comesa’s view on this?
The Comesa view remains consistent with the overall stance of developing countries and their regional configurations with emphasis the need for the conclusion and implementation of the Doha development agenda in the spirit and letter of the Doha Declaration.
Clearly, however, there have been some setbacks in the advancement of progress in this regard, due partly to unclear and changing priorities of some advanced members of the WTO; but what really needs to be done is for the organisation to address the remaining impediments to the conclusion of negotiations so that the next phase can be devoted to implementation of the development agenda.
In terms of the central question about trade-distorting subsidies to agricultural producers in industrialised countries, the Comesa view leading to the Nairobi Ministerial Conference therefore is to encourage the following: members of the WTO to re-affirm commitment to the Doha Development Agenda and its mandates, particularly in respect to core areas of importance to developing countries (including agriculture and food security considerations); affirmation that in the course of future negotiations in agricultural and non-agricultural goods, the flexibilities for developing countries be maintained; affirmation of agreed flexibilities for developing countries in other areas such as services, including those agreed under the Hong Kong and Bali Declarations — specifically for LDCs that do not contain elements of reciprocity in the content of procedures — and a decision on substantial reductions in trade distorting domestic support, particularly in developed countries.
What has been most responsible for Comesa’s trade figures?
Since the formation of the Free Trade Area in 2000, intra-trade Comesa has grown from $3 billion to $20.7 billion in 2014, which is growth of more than six times. Although dominated by commodities such as copper ores and concentrates, tea, cement, live animals, tobacco and cobalt ores and concentrates, manufactured exports are slowly gaining in importance. For instance, intra-Comesa total exports slightly increased by 1.9 per cent from $9.9 billion in 2013 to $10.1 billion in 2014. Intra-Comesa imports dropped by 4.4 per cent from $11.0 billion in 2013 to $10.6 billion in 2014.
Member states trading in similar products within the region is seen as one of the reasons behind Comesa’s registration of low trade growth. What are you doing about this?
The products from many of the Comesa member states are similar, mainly being agricultural and mineral products. Manufacturing activities are still low in many countries. The similarity of the products produced — the low trade complementarity — tends to limit the amount of trade among the member states.
The other reasons are the lack of information about products available in the region, traders preferring to do business with traditional suppliers from overseas countries, low level of industrialisation and high costs of transport within the bloc.
Source: The East African