COMESA’s Experience in Measuring Small Scale Cross Border Trade SWAC/OECD Experts Meeting on “Intra-regional food trade data in West Africa, 12th – 13th October 2023 Paris - France
1. About COMESA 2. About COMESA’s SSCBTl
Outline:
3. Summary SSCBTI Data Collection 4. The Services Angle in COMESA’s SSCBTI
1. About COMESA
www.comesa.int
COMESA developed a Regional Programme – Small Scale Cross-Border Trade Initiative (SSCBTI) – Facilitating Trade Across Borders (2018-2024), a €15million programme funded by the EU under the EDF 11. This program focuses on strengthening the small-scale cross border trade on 5 selected key borders.
2. About COMESA’s SSCBTI
1. Mwami/Mchinji between Zambia and Malawi; 2. Kasumbalesa between Zambia and DRC; 3. Chirundu between Zambia and Zimbabwe; 4. Tunduma/Nakonde between Tanzania and Zambia; 5. Moyale between Ethiopia and Kenya
The program has a sub-component on developing small scale cross border trade or informal trade statistics. This primarily looks at informal goods trade
2. COMESA’s SSCBTI …. • Small Scale Cross-Border Trade (SSCBT) or Informal Cross-Border Trade
(ICBT) refers to cross-border trade transactions that are not recorded by Customs Authorities hence missing in a country’s IMTS data.
ICBT at Kasumbalesa border between Zambia and Congo DR
3. Summary SSCBT/ICBT data collection Country
Zambia Zimbabwe Tanzania DRC Malawi Kenya
No of Number of SSCB Questionnaires Administered by Month Border Name Enumera Mar-23 Apr-23 May-23 Jun-23 Jul-23 Aug-23 tors Chirundu Kasumbalesa Mwami Nakonde Chirundu Tunduma Kasumbalesa Mchinji Moyale Total
3 15 5 13 2 6
1,350 29,870 2,245 11,234
2,478 9,285 848 8,260
2,700 25,707 2,071 19,902
3,561 17,682 167 7,526 217 11,735
477 11,077 1,233 8,864 612 8,193
2,424 21,578 1,719 13,173 545 10,448
11,856
10,633
10,084
6 16 66
1,078 1,542 1,278 1,102 1,393 1,512 11,060 9,894 9,039 7,224 7,256 8,352 57,633 33,046 61,742 41,990 31,849 51,399
Total 12,990 115,199 8,283 68,959 1,374 62,949 7,905 52,825 57,633
3. Summary SSCBT/ICBT data collection …
3. Summary SSCBT/ICBT data collection…..
3. Summary SSCBT/ICBT data collection…
4. The services angle in COMESA’s SSCBTI
In addition to collection of SSCBT data on goods, there is an attempt to collect informal SSCBT in services focusing on transportation, accommodation and storage services
Preliminary results of the SSCBT Service component show some data on transportation services but scanty on accommodation and storage services
Thank you for your attention