Reference News Network, January 27 report: According to an article published on the website of the British magazine The Economist on January 18, titled "Africa's Trade Volume Is Seriously Underestimated," the content is compiled as follows:
You might not expect that a small market on the edge of the Sahel would have a lot of seafood for sale. But the town of Paga in northern Ghana near the border with Burkina Faso indeed has a lot of seafood. A mountain of dried fish piled up in front of Ajoya Hassan comes from all over West Africa. When the supply from the port city of Takoradi in Ghana runs out, women like her, known as "market queens" (referring to women who dominate informal trade), will rent a truck and head north to the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou. The fish they buy may come from coastal areas of Togo, Benin, or even Nigeria. For local traders, these "market queens" have an international outlook that is surprising.
The low volume of trade between African countries has long been a common complaint among African policymakers. Official data show that only 15% of trade on the African continent is internal trade. Overcoming the distortions left by colonialism (which connected African exporters to foreign markets but isolated them from their neighbors) is at the core of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). This ambitious agreement came into effect five years ago. To ensure sufficient food in the coming decades, the African Union hopes to increase food production by half in the next decade and double internal agricultural trade within Africa.
This is a worthwhile goal, but it is partly based on a mistaken belief. Recent data collected show that official estimates have missed a large amount of internal trade across the African continent, especially in food trade. According to the latest research by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which is mainly composed of wealthy countries, about $10 billion worth of food is traded annually between West African countries alone. This is more than six times the official statistics.
The majority of food trade on the African continent goes unrecorded. Antoine Bue of the French think tank Centre for International Research and Forecasting said that transporting goods by road often makes it a "disaster" to account for these goods. For example, livestock transactions are usually conducted by herders, but to the frustration of customs officials, these herders rarely cross through official border checkpoints. OECD data show that if these unrecorded trade flows are combined with official data, the share of regional internal trade in fresh food exports (excluding cashews and cocoa) in West Africa would rise from one-third to two-thirds. This ratio is comparable to that of the European Union.
This is not just about food. In 2018, a study conducted by the Centre for International Research and Forecasting in Benin found that official statistics underestimated the total trade between Benin and its neighbor Nigeria, with imports underestimated by 50% and exports by 85%. The study pointed out that trade goods also include industrial products and textiles. Similarly, the traditional view that traders like Ghana's "market queens" are mostly small traders is misleading. The OECD found that nearly 90% of unrecorded food trade in West Africa involves large-scale transactions with heavy trucks. Even women selling tomatoes in the town of Paga sometimes rent entire fleets of trucks to transport agricultural products. Nearly half of Ghana's trade is conducted with non-neighboring countries.
Theoretically, a more integrated market should help improve food security. The food circulating between West African countries is mostly nutritious. Brahim Sissé, a trade expert from the West African Economic and Monetary Union, pointed out that countries in the Sahel region have an oversupply of livestock, while coastal neighbors have an oversupply of root crops such as cassava and yams. Countries need only support regional trade to effectively alleviate shortages and price fluctuations.
Unfortunately, some African countries are turning toward trade protectionism. Some countries have not rushed to implement the AfCFTA. Olivier Walter, a West African trade expert at the University of Florida in the United States, pointed out, "The national elite often benefit from the imperfections of regional integration."
For example, they can take advantage of arbitrage opportunities created by high tariffs and inefficient customs procedures. Some countries are also worried that their domestic industries could be flooded by cheap imported goods from larger economies such as South Africa or Morocco. African trade is not as insignificant as people usually think, but there is still a lot of room for growth. (Translated by Wang Diqing)
Original: toutiao.com/article/7599961121164722726/
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