Lessons drawn from an UNCTAD study on increasing the cost competitiveness of South Asia in the textiles and clothing sector could be used to promote intra-industry trade and export diversification in Africa, UNCTAD economist Rashmi Banga told an Expert Group meeting organised by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UN-ECA).
UN-ECA in collaboration with UNIDO hosted an expert group meeting on metrology, export diversification and intra-industry trade in Africa on 3-4 May in Lusaka, Zambia.
The main objective of the meeting was to provide a forum for the exchange of experiences on the challenges, good practices and trends in the linkages between trade, metrology and quality infrastructure, with a view to formulating key policy recommendations and actions at the national, sub-regional and continental levels.
It was noted that Africa’s share of total trade accounted for by intra-industry trade lags behind that observed in other regions of the world. One of the reasons for this has been the dominance of poorly differentiated unfinished product exports of Africa, which affords few prospects for intra-industry exchanges. Africa’s exports as a whole are concentrated in a few primary products, and directed towards a small number of markets. However, intra-regional trade in manufactured goods has witnessed much faster growth as compared to Africa’s trade in manufactured goods with the world. This reflects the importance of intra-regional trade on the continent as it provides opportunities for export diversification and increased value addition.
