Part 1
The phenomenon of Intra-Trade on the continent of Africa is still facing challenges of “trust” and “bad culture reputation” issues among traders themselves despite several decades of implementing “continental trade liberalisation” and “functional acquis” guiding trade relations, said Dr. Kelvin Kamayoyo, Zambian Economist and Scholar. lntra-Africa trade has a long history with the narrative of the continent’s regional economic integration and evolution of industrialisation. ln this article particular focus is on building a persuasive argument that trust and good culture reputation are essential to boosting intra-Africa trade.Relatively, intra-Africa trade has been chronically low and this basically means African countries are trading less with each other than with external countries or third parties. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Report,”lntra-Africa trade exports and imports is estimated at 17% and 14.6% respectively, which is far below the levels experienced by Europe and Asia.”
In contrast, most of the intra-trade in Africa is characterized by primary commodities while in Europe it is dominated by secondary or finished products.Vividly so, Africa’s intra-trade miniature circumstance is marred with less industrialisation, consumer preferences, weak value chains and disconnected supply chains. Withal the importance of trust and good culture reputation as a means to increasing intra-trade remains crucial. Thus, trust and good culture reputation are both indispensable elements for increasing intra-Africa trade and deepening regional economic integration.
Since 1993 when the African Union (AU), formerly known as Organization of African Unity (OAU), was established to integrate African economies, intra-Africa trade has been low despite having several African sub-regional economic communities and formidable acquis frameworks. Undeniably the desire for Africa’s political and economic integration has a historical life. According to the Economic Development in Africa Report, 2009, “Unity, cooperation and integration of Africa were long-standing aspirations of many African leaders, including George Patmore, W. E. B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey as well as African nationalists such as Kwame Nkrumah who, in his book Africa Must Unite, called for African Unity.”
However, African countries have in the last 5 decades demonstrated that they rarely trade amongst each other and this could be attributed to mistrust and bad culture reputation among traders. lt is not uncommon that a trader in one African country would not trust doing business with another trader in another African country within the continent of Africa. Ostensibly, most traders in Africa would rather trust and transact with a trader from say Europe, Asia or United States even if the price of the product is competitive. This is because of the thriving stereotype characterised by perverse trade practices among African traders on the continent.
Unfortunately even now most business people or traders in Africa fear to transact with each other because of imaginary historical bad culture reputation which is often associated with poor business etiquette, non-delivery, unecessary misunderstandings, risk of nonpayment, and poor product quality. This also spreads to investment partnerships where most Africans are often indifferent to effect joint ventures with each other. From anyone’s reasonable standpoint, Africa seems to be a rising continent full of trade and investment opportunities and rapidly growing youthful population. Conversely intra-Africa trade continue to experience stunted development.
Look out for Part 2 of this series of articles aimed at mindset change to encourage African traders to trade more with each other.
