Tariff Barriers In African International Trade Analysis

1. Introduction

Africa is a continent rich with natural resources and should benefit largely from trading with other countries. International trade is the exchange of goods and services across the borders and territories. Africa’s history is rich with trade. This gave rise to great cities and empires. North Africa was central to the trade regions. The Egyptian city of Alexandria was one of the hubs for the Mediterranean trade for many centuries. With the imperialism period and the scramble for Africa, this trade declined. The existing forms of African autonomy and self-governance were eliminated. The economy of Africa was rearranged to serve Europe. During the independence and the cold war era, many African countries won their independence.

6. Barriers of trade in Africa

A. Tariff Barriers Tariffs are the main limitations to trade in Africa. Countries hold various customs and border tariffs that make trade between countries which facilitates strain in the exchange of commodities between countries.

However it is imperative to note that, regional cooperation amongst states in Africa has degraded the barrier and tariff systems such as embargos on commodities.

A great example can be the inclusion of Rwanda and Burundi into the East African community has facilitated the movement of commodities from the Mombasa and Dar es Salaam ports in Kenya and Tanzania respectively, hence growth of these nations. The two developing countries are land locked and this cooperation was partially informed by the struggling of their trade systems to see their commodities exported.

B. Non-Tariff Barriers

Mshomba (2009) draws a table to identify the non- tariff barriers as to the trade that is practiced in Africa.

The table indicates the number of resolutions and unresolved cases’ plus other prohibitations and restrictons to trade in Africa.

Below is the table that indicates Africa’s trade Non-Tariff

First they went to start development projects. Those firms that were able to enter African markets early through development assistance projects gained an advantage to learn about local markets and then to use familiarity with Africa to make subsequent investments.

Second , particularly, a limited number of apparel manufactures established processing factories in Africa so as to increase their sales and for some of these the idea was to evade united states and European union protectionist trade restrictions on products from china by changing the country- of-origin of their goods and gaining access to these developed markets under their preferential trade agreements with Africa. Third, investments have involved the search oil and gas and other resources to export to china.

The Chinese private firms have gauged the factors leading them to invest in Africa include:

a. Access to local market

b. Intense competition in domestic markets

c. Transfer abroad of excessive domestic production