CHAPTER 4
Unlocking East Asian Markets to Sub-Saharan Africa Nama Ouattara and Albert G. Zeufack
Introduction Global competition in turbulent times has seen the gradual restructuring of international trade policy. According to the World Trade Organization trade monitoring report (WTO 2019), countries have applied 75 new trade restrictions, including tariff increases, quantitative restrictions, import taxes, and stricter customs regulations. This comes at a time of increasing trade tensions and associated rhetoric. Yet countries also continue to implement trade-facilitating measures, as witnessed by the growth of trade between 2016 and 2017. In value terms, merchandise exports rose by 10.6 percent, to $17.73 trillion, and services exports grew by 7.4 percent, to $5.25 trillion. Asia made the largest contribution to world trade volume growth in 2017, accounting for 51 percent of the increase in merchandise exports and 60 percent of the growth in merchandise imports. Interestingly, Sub-Saharan Africa’s share in Asian trade has increased rapidly, a hallmark of the recent growth of South–South trade.1 Over the past decade, economic relationships between Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia have expanded. Historically, these two regions have shared wide similarities. Although their historical ties since the Bandung Conference in the 1950s2 have been marked by shared ideology and political interest, contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa–Asia relations are structured around more-economic aspects, namely trade, investment, education, and technology transfer. In light of the recent trade and policy trends, it is expected that an even closer partnership could be beneficial for Sub-Saharan African countries if strategic policies are implemented. Therefore, this chapter investigates how Sub-Saharan Africa could further benefit from its growing trade relationship with Asia.
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