TBT Issues in Bilateral and Regional Trade Agreements: An African Perspective

Study from the OECD on  TBT issues in Africa.

TBT measures in African RTAs are apparently (with few exceptions) only vaguely addressed.  Interestingly, this paper also observes that there is an import-export bias in the sense that generally Africa seems to favour low technical requirements in respect of their imports (i.e. by virtue of their TBT border protection levels) whereas they face high TBT requirements for their exports to more developed regions. Products are often re-tested in export markets, leading to large cost penalties for exporters, whereas products of sub-standard quality often find their way into the markets of the region, because the TBT infrastructure is underdeveloped.

This June 2010 paper  also examines whether and how eight major regional integration agreements within the African region address TBT issues and implement the  WTO  TBT Agreement whose objective is to ensure that technical regulations and other TBT measures do not unnecessarily constitute barriers to trade. However the agreement also recognizes countries’ rights to adopt the standards they consider appropriate and it is acknowledged that domestic regulations and region-wide standards, are essential for protecting economies and common markets, from business practices that may bring harm to humans, plant, animal life, the environment, industry, and to national security.  

While only one of the 8 agreements surveyed by the authors refer explicitly to the WTO TBT Agreement, most of the RTAs refer to the elimination of TBT-related barriers or harmonisation of legitimate measures, but they use broad and non mandatory language. Few of the eight RTAs require or encourage parties to accept as equivalent the other parties’ regulations and conformance procedures. Mutual recognition is envisaged by some, but mostly as a goal and only in broad terms. None of the agreements reviewed require that parties explain the reasons for non-recognition.

Finally, there are no clauses prescribing transparency and no procedures for dealing with disputes over TBT matters.  Existing provisions for eliminating TBT-related barriers or harmonising legitimate technical regulations are formulated mostly in broad and nonprescriptive terms.

The paper provides concrete steps that parties to these RTAs have taken in order to reduce technical barriers. However, while TBT policy reform could be advanced through WTO negotiations, the authors recommend the following measures in order to facilitate TBT policy alignment among countries of the region:

• African RTAs should be revisited, reviewed and amended to include more stringent TBT provisions.
• A targeted review of TBTs should be undertaken in light of the development needs in meeting the basic requirements of standards systems and implementation of current obligations to support expanded trade opportunities with developed economies.
• It should be investigated whether African countries benefit from Mutual Recognition Agreements for national product testing and certification.
• Performance of enquiry points should be assessed throughout the region on an ongoing basis.
• A programme of assistance in infrastructure modernisation should be considered, comprising inter alia a long-term plan for infrastructure modernisation and enhanced access of African countries to the development of voluntary standards activities. 
• More attention should be paid to trade with India and China, with which the RECs in Africa and specifically the tripartite SADC/EAC/COMESA alliance have no trade agreement or TBT arrangements.Because of the sheer size of these economies, trade in unregulated low-priced products may be harmful to consumers and economies of the sub-Saharan region. (a controversial point might I add given the reports of dumping from the west as well).

The publication is useful but I should also mention a few additional facts. African enterprises need to link with global supply chains to market their products internationally however such linkages (beyond the supplies of raw materials) are few and far between. In addition, African exporters are largely small scale- even SMEs, when compared to their  international counterparts. SMEs have inherent difficulties with access to capital, productive capacity, technology and servicing because of resource limitations. Therefore my additional recommendations would be for increased investment in capacity building, testing and technology at the the enterprise level.

This publication can be accessed here.