Commonwealth Business Communications
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • COUNTRIES
    • AFRICA
      • BOTSWANA
      • CAMEROON
      • GAMBIA
      • GHANA
      • KENYA
      • KINGDOM OF eSWATINI
      • LESOTHO
      • MALAWI
      • MAURITIUS
      • MOZAMBIQUE
      • NAMIBIA
      • NIGERIA
      • RWANDA
      • SEYCHELLES
      • SIERRA LEONE
      • SOUTH AFRICA
      • TANZANIA
      • UGANDA
      • ZAMBIA
    • ASIA
      • BANGLADESH
      • BRUNEI DARUSSALAM
      • INDIA
      • MALAYSIA
      • MALDIVES
      • PAKISTAN
      • SINGAPORE
      • SRI LANKA
    • CARIBBEAN AND AMERICAS
      • ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA
      • BAHAMAS
      • BARBADOS
      • BELIZE
      • CANADA
      • DOMINICA
      • GRENADA
      • GUYANA
      • JAMAICA
      • SAINT LUCIA
      • ST KITTS AND NEVIS
      • ST VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
      • TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
    • EUROPE
      • CYPRUS
      • MALTA
      • UNITED KINGDOM
    • PACIFIC
      • AUSTRALIA
      • FIJI
      • KIRIBATI
      • NAURU
      • NEW ZEALAND
      • PAPUA NEW GUINEA
      • SAMOA
      • SOLOMON ISLANDS
      • TONGA
      • TUVALU
      • VANUATU
  • AREAS OF WORK
    • GOVERNMENT
    • EDUCATION
    • HEALTH
    • ICT
    • INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT
    • NATURAL RESOURCES
    • SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
    • TRADE AND INVESTMENT
  • OUR PUBLICATIONS
    • CHOGM
      • COMMONWEALTH HEADS OF GOVERNMENT INTERIM REPORT 2020
      • THE COMMONWEALTH HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEETING 2018 REPORT
      • THE COMMONWEALTH HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEETING 2015 REPORT
      • THE COMMONWEALTH HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEETING 2011 REPORT
      • THE COMMONWEALTH HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEETING 2009 REPORT
      • THE COMMONWEALTH HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEETING 2007 REPORT
    • HEALTH
      • COMMONWEALTH HEALTH REPORT 2022
      • COMMONWEALTH HEALTH REPORT 2020
    • EDUCATION
      • COMMONWEALTH EDUCATION REPORT 2021
      • COMMONWEALTH EDUCATION REPORT 2019
    • MINISTERS
      • MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK COMMONWEALTH 2017
      • MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK COMMONWEALTH 2015
      • MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK COMMONWEALTH 2014
      • COMMONWEALTH MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK 2011
      • COMMONWEALTH MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK 2010
      • COMMONWEALTH MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK 2009
      • COMMONWEALTH MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK 2008
      • COMMONWEALTH MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK 2007
    • FINANCE
      • COMMONWEALTH FINANCE MINISTERS REPORT 2012
      • COMMONWEALTH FINANCE MINISTERS REFERENCE REPORT 2010
      • COMMONWEALTH FINANCE MINISTERS REFERENCE REPORT 2009
      • COMMONWEALTH FINANCE MINISTERS REFERENCE REPORT 2008
      • COMMONWEALTH FINANCE MINISTERS REFERENCE REPORT 2007
    • TRADE AND INVESTMENT
      • AFRICA INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT REPORT 2013
    • QUEEN AND COMMONWEALTH
      • QUEEN & COMMONWEALTH: CELEBRATING HER MAJESTY’S PLATINUM JUBILEE
      • QUEEN & COMMONWEALTH: 90 GLORIOUS YEARS
      • QUEEN & COMMONWEALTH: CELEBRATING HER MAJESTY’S DIAMOND JUBILEE
  • CONTRIBUTORS
  • CONTACT US
Commonwealth Business Communications
Commonwealth Business Communications
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • COUNTRIES
    • AFRICA
      • BOTSWANA
      • CAMEROON
      • GAMBIA
      • GHANA
      • KENYA
      • KINGDOM OF eSWATINI
      • LESOTHO
      • MALAWI
      • MAURITIUS
      • MOZAMBIQUE
      • NAMIBIA
      • NIGERIA
      • RWANDA
      • SEYCHELLES
      • SIERRA LEONE
      • SOUTH AFRICA
      • TANZANIA
      • UGANDA
      • ZAMBIA
    • ASIA
      • BANGLADESH
      • BRUNEI DARUSSALAM
      • INDIA
      • MALAYSIA
      • MALDIVES
      • PAKISTAN
      • SINGAPORE
      • SRI LANKA
    • CARIBBEAN AND AMERICAS
      • ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA
      • BAHAMAS
      • BARBADOS
      • BELIZE
      • CANADA
      • DOMINICA
      • GRENADA
      • GUYANA
      • JAMAICA
      • SAINT LUCIA
      • ST KITTS AND NEVIS
      • ST VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
      • TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
    • EUROPE
      • CYPRUS
      • MALTA
      • UNITED KINGDOM
    • PACIFIC
      • AUSTRALIA
      • FIJI
      • KIRIBATI
      • NAURU
      • NEW ZEALAND
      • PAPUA NEW GUINEA
      • SAMOA
      • SOLOMON ISLANDS
      • TONGA
      • TUVALU
      • VANUATU
  • AREAS OF WORK
    • GOVERNMENT
    • EDUCATION
    • HEALTH
    • ICT
    • INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT
    • NATURAL RESOURCES
    • SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
    • TRADE AND INVESTMENT
  • OUR PUBLICATIONS
    • CHOGM
      • COMMONWEALTH HEADS OF GOVERNMENT INTERIM REPORT 2020
      • THE COMMONWEALTH HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEETING 2018 REPORT
      • THE COMMONWEALTH HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEETING 2015 REPORT
      • THE COMMONWEALTH HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEETING 2011 REPORT
      • THE COMMONWEALTH HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEETING 2009 REPORT
      • THE COMMONWEALTH HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEETING 2007 REPORT
    • HEALTH
      • COMMONWEALTH HEALTH REPORT 2022
      • COMMONWEALTH HEALTH REPORT 2020
    • EDUCATION
      • COMMONWEALTH EDUCATION REPORT 2021
      • COMMONWEALTH EDUCATION REPORT 2019
    • MINISTERS
      • MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK COMMONWEALTH 2017
      • MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK COMMONWEALTH 2015
      • MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK COMMONWEALTH 2014
      • COMMONWEALTH MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK 2011
      • COMMONWEALTH MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK 2010
      • COMMONWEALTH MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK 2009
      • COMMONWEALTH MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK 2008
      • COMMONWEALTH MINISTERS REFERENCE BOOK 2007
    • FINANCE
      • COMMONWEALTH FINANCE MINISTERS REPORT 2012
      • COMMONWEALTH FINANCE MINISTERS REFERENCE REPORT 2010
      • COMMONWEALTH FINANCE MINISTERS REFERENCE REPORT 2009
      • COMMONWEALTH FINANCE MINISTERS REFERENCE REPORT 2008
      • COMMONWEALTH FINANCE MINISTERS REFERENCE REPORT 2007
    • TRADE AND INVESTMENT
      • AFRICA INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT REPORT 2013
    • QUEEN AND COMMONWEALTH
      • QUEEN & COMMONWEALTH: CELEBRATING HER MAJESTY’S PLATINUM JUBILEE
      • QUEEN & COMMONWEALTH: 90 GLORIOUS YEARS
      • QUEEN & COMMONWEALTH: CELEBRATING HER MAJESTY’S DIAMOND JUBILEE
  • CONTRIBUTORS
  • CONTACT US

AFCFTA NEGOTIATIONS CONTINUING DESPITE CORONAVIRUS

  • CBC News Team
Total
0
Shares
0
0
0

Member States are continuing negotiations on phase 1 issues of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) despite the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic, says Economic Commission for Africa’s Stephen Karingi.

Mr Karingi, Director of the ECA’s Regional Integration and Trade Division, says though timelines may have been revised for the commencement of trade with the global pandemic taking a toll on the advancement of the operational phase of the AfCFTA, the need for further analysis on the linkages and interplay between phase II issues was critical to support negotiations.

Mr Karingi was speaking during a virtual Expert Group Meeting to review the draft publication – Towards a Common Investment Area in the African Continental Free Trade Area: Levelling the Playing Field for Intra-African Investment.

“The ECA has therefore started policy research on a common investment area, with a view to deepen the analysis we undertook in ARIA IX,” he said.

“It is our aspiration that the envisaged research will contribute to elucidating and shaping the debate on how the AfCFTA may be instrumental to level the playing field for intra-African investment, through coherent rules that govern a common investment area and that exploit the positive synergies and linkages that may exist with competition, intellectual property and digitalization.”

Mr Karingi also spoke about the investment regulatory landscape in Africa which is littered by a proliferation of bilateral investment treaties (BITs). Currently, Africa has a total of 731 BITs of which 135 are intra-African.

These treaties have often added an additional regulatory layer, created an uneven playing field among different types of investors, undermining the policy space of host economies.

These need to be addressed, said Mr Karingi.

“African countries’ experience to counter this “spaghetti bowl” of investment treaties has taken several approaches, including taking the initiative of developing their own rules, and unilaterally, initiatives such as that of South Africa to terminate existing bilateral investment treaties and level the policy field by reforming its domestic legal and regulatory frameworks with its Protection of Investment Act enacted last year,” noted the Director.

At a subregional level, the East African Community has developed a new draft Investment Policy that would streamline and harmonise the existing investment regimes and other regional economic communities have also made strides in this area, such as COMESA, with its common investment area, through the consolidation of existing regulation, notably through the recent series of binding protocols and non-binding model BITs formulated by some of the RECs for example ECOWAS, EAC, SADC, COMESA and AMU.

A multilateral approach spearheaded by the African Union, has been the Pan African Investment Code (PAIC) adopted in 2017 as a non-binding instrument, with a set of investment rules that are balanced, innovative and forward looking. The ECA supported this process with a view to rebalance the right and obligations of States and investors, whilst seeking to integrate sustainable development in investment law. The PAIC has set the stage and is likely to influence Africa-wide regulatory IIA reform, also in the context of the AfCFTA.

Mr Karingi said all these efforts at the national, regional and plurilateral levels provide evidence of the conviction that intra-African investment could play a crucial role in increasing the actual levels of investment in Africa and contribute to improving its relative performance in terms of its global participation in FDI flows.

“It is therefore important to understand how the AfCFTA could also be instrumental to this objective,” he said.

The Market Institutions Section of the RITD which organized the meeting seeks to build on previous research on linkages between BITs and Double Taxation Treaties (DTTs), as well as drivers of intra-African investment, to support the advancement of a continental approach on investment regulation in the AfCFTA. More recently, ARIA IX, which was launched last year, looked at the envisaged investment protocol of the AfCFTA as well as the other phase II issues, namely competition, and intellectual property, as well as e-commerce, as a phase III issue.

The AfCFTA will be the largest free trade area in the world, uniting 1.3 billion people in a $3.4 trillion economic bloc.

Learn More: UNECA

Image by Marco Bianchetti on Unsplash

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Related Topics
  • COVID-19
  • AFRICAN TRADE
CBC News Team

Previous Article

AFRICA INNOVATES

  • CBC News Team
Read More
Next Article

AFRICA COULD GAIN $89 BILLION ANNUALLY BY CURBING ILLICIT FINANCIAL FLOWS

  • CBC News Team
Read More
You May Also Like
Nigerian communities file pollution case against Shell
Read More
  • Natural Resources
  • Environment & Sustainability
  • AFRICA
  • NIGERIA

Nigerian communities file pollution case against Shell

  • CBC News Team
  • 3 February 2023
Nigeria banknotes. Nigeriannaira bills. 1000 NGN polymer. Business, finance background.
Read More
  • Trade & Investment
  • Finance
  • AFRICA
  • NIGERIA

Nigeria postpones deadline to exchange old notes amid political pressure

  • CBC News Team
  • 31 January 2023
Diphtheria outbreak in Nigeria, 38 dead
Read More
  • Health
  • AFRICA
  • NIGERIA

Diphtheria outbreak in Nigeria, 38 dead

  • CBC News Team
  • 26 January 2023
Namibia COVID
Read More
  • Education & Youth
  • Health
  • AFRICA
  • HEALTH
  • NAMIBIA

Namibia blames COVID for poor academic results

  • CBC News Team
  • 25 January 2023
Ghana makes progress in malaria elimination
Read More
  • Health
  • GHANA
  • HEALTH

Ghana makes progress in malaria elimination

  • CBC News Team
  • 24 January 2023
Gabon foreign minister
Read More
  • Heads of Government
  • GABON
  • AFRICA

Gabon Foreign Minister dies of cardiac arrest

  • CBC News Team
  • 23 January 2023
Measles outbreak declared as South African classrooms reopen
Read More
  • Health
  • AFRICA
  • HEALTH
  • HEALTH
  • SOUTH AFRICA

Measles outbreak declared as South African classrooms reopen

  • CBC News Team
  • 19 January 2023
Kwankwaso joins run to rescue Nigeria’s educational system
Read More
  • Education & Youth
  • AFRICA
  • NIGERIA

Kwankwaso joins run to rescue Nigeria’s educational system

  • CBC News Team
  • 17 January 2023
OUR LATEST PUBLICATION

Subscribe to our Newsletter

PARTNER FOCUS
Recent Posts
  • Celebrating Sri Lanka Independence Day
    Celebrating Sri Lanka Independence Day
  • Nigerian communities file pollution case against Shell
    Nigerian communities file pollution case against Shell
  • Australian banknote Currency - Cash
    Australia removes monarch from banknotes
  • Flag of Nauru
    Celebrating Nauru Independence Day

Subscribe

Subscribe now to our newsletter

Commonwealth Business Communications
  • HOME
  • About
  • Contact
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
© 2022 Commonwealth Business Communications Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Input your search keywords and press Enter.