africa

Africa at a Fork in the Road: Taking Off or Disappointment Once Again?
for small-scale domestic firms, allowing local firms to upgrade into international
markets (ECA and AUC, 2013).
Intra-African trade is much more diversified than African trade with the rest of the
world. Manufactures make up an estimated 40 percent of intra-African exports, but
only 12 percent of African exports to the rest of the world (ECA-AUC, 2014). Taking
an example of sub-regional trade facilitated by regional economic community
agreements, Figure 22.3 decomposes trade flows within the East African Community
regional block, indicating the large role of manufactured products.
Figure 22.3: Composition of Intra-East African Community Exports, 2010-12
Source: UNCTADStat Database at http://unctadstat.unctad.org/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=120,
accessed 1 April 2014.
Current trade patterns underscore the need for African countries to boost trade among
themselves as a means to facilitate trade in a diversified portfolio of products. To
achieve such a boost will require concerted efforts to address the numerous traderelated
constraints among African countries, such as tariff and non-tariff barriers,
poor infrastructure, and technical barriers to trade.
22.3.6 Growing partnerships with emerging markets
Africa’s growing partnerships with emerging markets provide chances to seek
alternative sources of finance, investment, trade, and knowledge sharing, and also
present opportunities for African countries to move beyond commodities and link
into global manufacturing value chains. Trade with emerging markets increased
from 21.7 percent of Africa’s total trade in 2000 to 36.4 percent in 2009 (AfDB and
others, 2011). Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been linking with emerging markets
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