Mandatory national regulations on health, safety, and the environment, as well as market-driven standards might undermine free movement of goods and services on the continent, Rwanda’s Minister for Trade and Industry has warned. Béata Habyarimana was speaking in Kigali during the opening of a two-day meeting of the Council for the African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO) on Monday, June 14, The meeting is part of a four-day series of physical and hybrid ARSO General Assembly events, running under theme, “The Beginning of Trade Among the African Countries under the AfCFTA Agreement: Boosting Intra-African Trade Within the African Single Market through ‘One Standard – One Test – One Certificate – Accepted Everywhere.” The AfCFTA, or the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement, is a pan-African trading framework signed in Kigali in 2018. So far, ratified by 27 countries and signed by 54 nations, the AfCFTA is the world’s largest free trade zone with a promise to transform the economic fortunes of a continent of 1.2 billion people and a combined GDP of US$3.5 trillion. Habyarimana called on African governments to “strengthen cooperation to achieve the goals of AfCFTA, especially the creation of a single continental market for goods and services, with free movement of business persons and investments.” ‘A clearer path to African integration, industrialisation’ She said this would pave the way for the acceleration of the establishment of a continental Customs Union. “Harmonisation of the African standards, conformity assessment procedures and technical regulations….leveraging on the benefits of Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRMs) whereby African countries will recognise one another’s testing and certification requirements as acceptable, without undertaking further testing or customs inspections will inevitably reduce technical barriers to trade,” she said. The minister said this would help accelerate the benefits of AfCFTA. “Africa stands in a unique position to reap the benefits of economic growth as a dynamic, diversified and competitive economic zone, a new economic frontier, and an important growth pole,” she noted. The trade minister added: “This requires transformation of African countries into locations of competitive industrial production and prioritisation of sectors with high potential for industrial growth and meaningfully make Africa leapfrog in its industrial development.” This would see the continent take “advantage of the opportunities within the AfCFTA Agreement, and increased focus on strengthening the African Quality Infrastructure, which remains the ever invincible pillar of sustainable development, worldwide.” “Across the continent, there is a general agreement that the creation of AfCFTA is perhaps the greatest step and a clearer path to African integration and industrialisation,” Habyarimana said. Concerns over Technical Barriers to Trade Underlining the importance of harmonised standards, she said that “development of Africa’s technical regulation framework will cement bilateral relations among the African countries, for increased intra-African trade.” She cited resolutions of a June 2013 AU Conference of Ministers of Industry, held in Kenya, which touted the Pan-African Quality Infrastructure as the “continental platform for all matters related to standardization, metrology, accreditation and conformity assessment.” This, she said, would help “strengthen the competitiveness of Africa’s goods and services and contribute towards the industrialisation of the continent and its sustainability.” Habyarimana warned that “while the optimism about the benefits from AfCFTA is real across the continent….experts and policymakers already anticipate that, under AfCFTA, African countries, with different regulatory frameworks and heterogenous standards, technical regulations and conformity assessment regimes…will continue to be confronted with the main Technical Barriers to Trade issues.” AfCFTA potential Citing 2018 predictions by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the minister said that AfCFTA has the potential to increase intra-African trade by 52.3 per cent and to double this trade. “It could also stimulate intra-African trade by up to US$35 billion per year, or 52% (above the baseline) by 2022 and lead to a US$10 billion decrease in imports from outside the continent, while boosting agriculture and industrial exports by up to US$4 billion (7%) and US$21 billion (5%) respectively,” she said. “It is ripe time to emphasise the understanding of linkages between global trade, export competitiveness and sustainable development, and reckon that standardization is at the forefront to enable development of mutually beneficial trade policies,” the minister observed. Formed in 1977, ARSO is a pan-African framework that seeks to harmonise African standards, conformity assessment and procedures in order to reduce technical barriers to trade with a view to promote intra-African trade, industrialisation and international trade. Raymond Murenzi, director-general, Rwanda Standards Board, also spoke about the benefits and impact of harmonised standards on intra-Africa trade and free movement of goods, services and people across the continent. He said that harmonising standards has the potential to serve as both an “enabler and game changer” for Africa’s socio-economic integration. According to Hermogene Nsengimana, secretary-general, ARSO, the ongoing ARSO sessions would pay special attention to priority areas, including most traded products.
