Economics, politics Africa, US, Europe

[RWalker]

This is a three piece submission.

The first is a 2005 article written by Gamal Nkrumah, provides a good source for understanding the link between contending economic goals and the current political and military strength of Africa Think continental! Is its message.

The second and third articles demonstrate the struggle, tactics and strategies used by Europe and the US in this global thug of war. They cover the EU attack on Africa's small gains in ACP - EU trade negotiation, and the resistance of Africa.

The other article deals with the key group of corporate America for exploitation; it is instructive and shows one side of their approach.

Roy

Think continental

Inter-continental trade is the way for Africa to forge ahead, Trade and Industry Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid tells Gamal Nkrumah

Plans to reinvigorate African economies and integrate the continent more fully into the global economy all too often drown in an ocean of words. African conferences tend to be strong on pageantry and symbolism and weak on substance. This week's Cairo African Trade Conference may well be an exception.
That said, the answers to a great many of the continent's economic woes lie in non-African hands. Indeed, many in Africa blame the relative lack of economic progress on an inherently unfair international trade system. Africa, they argue, is fully integrated into the global economy and trading system -- it is just that it is integrated in an unjust, demeaning and fundamentally warped fashion. The continent is in a no-win situation.
"Through its leadership of the AU Trade Ministers, and of the Africa Group inside the WTO, Egypt hopes to play an increasingly active and central role in promoting the African position on global trade issues and in facilitating intra- African trade," Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid told Al-Ahram Weekly.
"We need to excite Africa about itself."
Egypt is acutely aware of the unfair trade practices of the West as well as Africa's own serious infrastructural shortcomings which stand in the way of inter- African trade. Traditionally, individual African countries have focussed on products in which they have a comparative cross-border advantage.
"The promotion of regional trade is the key to the continent's economic prosperity," Rachid said.
Egypt already exports building materials, cement, ceramics, petrochemicals, agricultural products, pharmaceuticals, textiles and footwear to other African countries, and a number of high profile Egyptian businessmen keen to capitalise on business opportunities in Africa attended the Cairo gathering.
The five-day third ordinary session of the Africa Union (AU) Conference of Trade Ministers, at which Egypt officially took over the chair of the AU Conference of Trade Ministers, began on 5 June and ends today.
The session discussed a common African position to be adopted during World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations and reviewed the continent's economic and trade relations with key global trading partners. Participating trade ministers also assessed the progress of regional trade facilitation and liberalisation efforts currently underway.
"The prominence of WTO negotiations on the conference agenda underscores the importance to Africa of a fair, non-discriminatory, predictable, multilateral rules-based trading system," Minister Rachid explained. "The meeting will explore the status of the negotiations that followed the July Package (2004) and determine what African nations expect from the final package at the WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong in December 2005," he told the Weekly on the eve of the Cairo conference.
Rachid stressed that WTO issues of particular concern to African ministers include the elimination of trade distorting subsidies and a significant improvement in market access, particularly in the agricultural, manufacturing and service sectors.
"Agriculture is crucial to development, poverty reduction and food security in Africa and will receive special attention at the conference," he said.
Inter-African trade stands at a paltry seven to eight per cent. "It compares poorly with other continents. In Europe, Asia and Latin America at least 50 per cent of trade is within the same continent."
Rachid warned that African countries must not focus on the few products in which individual states enjoy a comparative advantage.
"We must think continental. Unless we are able to significantly boost regional trade our chances of playing a bigger international role will be minimal."
On Wednesday, Deputy United States Trade Representative Peter Allgeier and European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson joined Rachid for discussions on promoting trade with Africa.
Rachid, who worked with UNILIVER before taking up his ministerial post, has travelled extensively in Africa. He used to visit South Africa two or three times a year and has worked extensively in West Africa, in Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast. He is also familiar with Kenya and Tanzania, Sudan, the Maghreb countries of North Africa and Libya.
"Egypt has a special relationship with COMESA and with the North African countries of the Maghreb. But we also trade with West Africa and increasingly with southern Africa," he said.
Rachid had previously stressed the central importance of development at the Doha Round for Africa where he drew attention to the detrimental impact of trade liberalisation on the economies of Africa's most vulnerable countries.
Africa's trade ministers reviewed a status report on the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) under negotiation between African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and the European Union as part of the Cotonou Agreement. They also reviewed a report on the implementation of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA III), a US trade agreement according preferential treatment to Africa.
Rachid views Africa's trade and investment relationship with Asia, and especially with China and Japan, in an optimistic light. Both the conclusions of the third Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD III) and the growth in African trade with China and southeast Asia were discussed at the Cairo gathering.

When reading these keep in mind the battle is over the tremendous wealth of Africa...and exploitation of African human capital. Africa will demonstrate that it is up to the political and defense requirements ... at some future point in her continental culture development timeline...we can speed it up by helping each other...globally

Africa: Countries Stand Up to EU

Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
28 August 2007
Posted to the web 28 August 2007
Michael Deibert
Paris
Concern over getting too little in return for what they are being asked to give up has led some African nations to say "no" to some proposals for new trade relations with Europe next year.
Several Eastern and Southern African nations have announced that they will only sign parts of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that relate to market access and development. The EPAs have been put forth as successor to the Cotonou Agreement, which expires at the end of December.

The Cotonou Agreement gives 77 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries preferential access to European Union (EU) markets. Signed in Benin capital Cotonou in June 2000, the agreement replaced the 25 year-old Lome Convention (signed in the Togo capital).
The Cotonou Agreement was broader in sweep than its predecessor, and set as its objectives "poverty eradication, sustainable development and the gradual integration of the ACP countries into the world economy."
At a regional negotiation forum Aug. 3 to 5 in Port Louis, Mauritius, 16 Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) countries agreed a strategy to be presented at their next negotiating round in September.
The 16 COMESA nations, represented by no less than five separate overlapping and occasionally competing economic groups, have little choice but to sign on to the market aspects of the new pact in order to maintain preferential access to EU markets and remain compatible with World Trade Organisation (WTO) access rules.
At present ACP members enjoy non-reciprocal trade benefits with the EU -- such as access to EU markets which EU nations do not enjoy with ACP countries -- but these benefits are incompatible with WTO standards.
New trade terms are being renegotiated through creation of WTO-compliant Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that are scheduled to enter into force by the end of 2007. But EPA negotiations have proved difficult, with some countries fearing that their economies will not be able to withstand competition from European goods for years to come.
At a meeting in Brussels in February this year, COMESA negotiators said that potential loss to revenue for many African states across the continent heavily dependant on tariffs could require the EU to provide an additional 2 billion euros in assistance by 2010 if they were to allow Europeans free access. The COMESA members also want the EU to commit more funds to development in exchange for lowering trade duties.
"What Africa lacks is a market for its goods, and there are many barriers amidst which our goods are produced and sold to the EU," says Tiberius Barasa, assistant research fellow at the governance and development programme at the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR) in Nairobi, Kenya.
The EU has been accused by some food and trade policy analysts in the developing world of applying "zero tolerance" policies on food import that they say have more to do with protecting Europe's heavily subsidised agricultural and fishing industries than with public safety.
Another mistake, some observers in Africa say, is an insistence on the part of Brussels to make South Africa the standard for assessing the capacity of the whole continent to withstand loss of revenue foreseen through the EPAs.
"This appears to be a fundamental clash of paradigms, and it's very difficult to see how we're going to overcome that," says Brendan Vickers, senior researcher on multilateral trade at South Africa's Institute for Global Dialogue. "The (European) Commission just isn't seeing the bigger picture, and there's a failure to understand that it's not just the South African market, it's the markets of other countries and less developed countries."
South Africa, which has natural resources and a highly developed business and communications infrastructure, maintained per capita gross domestic product of 13,300 dollars last year, despite unemployment that still hovers around 25 percent. The Bureau for Economic Research in South Africa reported this month that South Africa's GDP growth holds steady at 5 percent.
By contrast, Mozambique maintained a GDP per capita of just 1,500 dollars over the same period. In Kenya it was 1,200 dollars, and in Tanzania 800 dollars.
Despite offer of a transitional period for lowering trade barriers, there are fears that any agreement that does not address issues such as production and supply within each individual economy could do more harm than good to bilateral trade.
"If you look at national impact studies that have been made, you find that these reciprocal free trade agreements are going to be devastating for industrial capacity, for tariff revenues," says Vickers. "There's a need for far greater development cooperation to address these issues."



U.S. and African Businesses Convene to Increase and Promote Greater U.S. Trade and Investment in Africa, November 14-16, 2007 in Cape Town






Corporate Council on Africa (Washington, DC)
SPONSOR WIRE
8 August 2007
Posted to the web 8 August 2007
Washington, D.C.
Industry Experts Predict that Summit will Bring Largest, Simultaneous Delegation of U.S. Business Leaders to Africa in History.
U.S. Secretary of State Says Summit is an Important Opportunity for U.S. and African Political, Business, and Civil Society Leaders to Work Together to Address Development Challenges
The Corporate Council on Africa (CCA), with the support of leading U.S. corporations, African businesses, and global leaders from the private and public sectors, will host its 2007 U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, November 14-16, 2007.
Hosted every two years, this is CCA's sixth Summit, but the first-ever to be held in Africa. More than 1,500 participants are expected to attend.
As CCA's flagship event, the Summit provides a forum for some of the world's top global business leaders to discuss trade and investment opportunities in Africa, best practices, and how best to increase trade and investment in ways that will help engender sustainable growth on the continent.
The 2007 Summit will feature business trade missions led by a diverse pool of U.S. organizations, to nearly 30 African nations. In an unprecedented offering, Summit delegates will have an opportunity to explore business prospects in an additional African country, immediately following the Summit in Cape Town. Each trade mission will feature a financing expert.
The three-day U.S.-Africa Business Summit will include sector-specific plenary sessions, workshops, business networking opportunities, and a two-day trade expo where businesses will showcase their products, services, and capabilities to potential buyers and customers throughout Africa. Sessions will focus on key sectors including, infrastructure development, mining, agribusiness, telecommunications, energy, transportation, and sports and tourism among numerous others.
"U.S. businesses have taken notice of the expanding interest in Africa by nations such as China, India, and Brazil and realize that to remain competitive they too must sustain their presence and investment on the continent," said CCA President Stephen Hayes . "We are proud to host the Summit in Africa for the first time, and overwhelmed with the response we've received from some of the world's premiere corporations and global leaders who understand the importance of both having this dialogue and taking advantage of the many commercial opportunities across a variety of commercial sectors that exist throughout Africa."
In a letter addressed to CCA Board of Directors Chairman Maurice Templesman, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote, "I applaud the decision of The Corporate Council on Africa to host the U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Cape Town in November…[this is an] important opportunity for U.S. and African political, business, and civil society leaders to work together to address development challenges. I thank you for your strong support and continued cooperation on one of the most significant foreign policy challenges of our time: promoting U.S.-Africa business ties and strengthening U.S. trade and investment in Africa."
To date, corporations including Chevron, Merck, ExxonMobil, Boeing, 3M, Cargill, General Motors, Chrysler, Hewlett-Packard, Development Bank of Southern Africa, and Lazare Kaplan International; as well as media outlets including New African, African Business, Corporate Africa, and Institutional Investor, have come together as sponsors of the upcoming Summit.
CCA's U.S.-Africa Business Summits have a stellar track record of attendees and high-powered workshop and plenary sessions. Former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, President George W. Bush, South Africa President Thabo Mbeki, and many other African Heads of State have participated in past Summits.
To find out more about the upcoming Summit visit www.africacncl.org.
CCA, established in 1993, is a nonpartisan 501 (c) (3) membership organization of nearly 200 U.S. companies dedicated to strengthening the commercial relationship between the U.S. and Africa. CCA members represent nearly 85 percent of total U.S. private sector investments in Africa. The organization is dedicated to bringing together potential business partners and to showcase business opportunities on the continent.