Launch of Trade Facilitation Project in Kinshasa

Thank you for welcoming me to Kinshasa, where I am proud to join you for the launch of this joint trade facilitation project implemented by UNCTAD and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) secretariat, funded by the African Development Bank.

We are pleased that this project will benefit 5 Central African countries: DRC, Congo, Chad, CAR, and Equatorial Guinea, and will build on our successful experiences providing similar support in Cameroon, Gabon, and Sao Tome. These efforts will ensure a regional approach to developing strategies for trade facilitation in the wider ECCAS region.

Our technical cooperation efforts seek to build and improve human and institutional capacities of Central African national trade facilitation committees (NTFCs) in order to coordinate and implement trade facilitation reforms at both national and regional levels.

Our hope is that this work will increase ECCAS members’ knowledge on technical and legal aspects of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) as well as specific issues related to the establishment of a single window, as well as cross-cutting issues, such as gender and trade facilitation.

As I mentioned at the outset, UNCTAD has already implemented a similar Empowerment Programme for NTFCS in 3 other Central African countries, i.e. Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe, and Cameroun in 2017-2019.  This also builds on similar successes we have accompanied in Eastern African countries (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi).

It is our firm belief that these regional trade facilitation efforts – working from the ground up, with stakeholders and beneficiaries of faster and simpler cross-border trade – are key pillars of what will make the African common market an engine for Africa’s future prosperity.

The benefits of trade facilitation are clear and decisive, and you have already seen efforts in this regard bear fruit. Our implementation of the ASYCUDA/SYDONIAWorld system in DRC over the past decade has seen marvelous results for the government and for traders. The project has increased customs revenues in DRC from around $240 million in 2010 (408 bn Congolese Francs) up to now $1.6 billion in 2018 (2.8 trillion Congolese Francs).

While these are important resources for Government, the savings incurred by private sector are already also impressive indeed. ASYCUDA has already begun improving “trade facilitation” by lowering the release time at the border from 9 days in 2013 to 3 days in 2018 thanks to automation. Now it is our hope that support to NTFCs can further result in gains for the DRC, it’s traders and indeed for the whole region and communities of Central Africa.

I am pleased for this opportunity to visit the DRC, and I would urge your policymakers and politicians to step up your efforts to ratify the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, as well as the AfCFTA agreement. It is in the interest of the future of all our entire continent.

Next week, I will be launching of the same program, just across the border in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. I think we are the beginning of an important momentum of renewal that will allow all of Africa – Central Africa in particular – to benefit from, rather than fear, the links between neighbors.