Trade in services : opening markets to create opportunities

Abstract

This chapter reviews some of the literature on trade in services, with an emphasis on recent analyses of services trade policies and their effects. African trade is heavily concentrated in agricultural and natural resource-based commodities; the agricultural sector continues to be a major source of employment and economic activity. Trade volumes have risen since the 1990s and exports of some industrial and processed products have been increasing, however, intra-regional trade remains well below potential and the challenge of diversification continues to prevail. There are encouraging prospects for accelerating trade growth as a result of policy reforms. A premise of this chapter is that a precondition for leveraging trade opportunities is a substantial reduction in trading and transaction costs for African firms beyond the current focus on actions to facilitate trade and focus more on improving the performance of a variety of services, including transport, logistics, and related services.