The World Bank says regional trade barriers are blocking African
countries from billions of dollars in potential earnings. It
says it’s easier for those countries to trade with other parts
of the world than with each other. The World Bank has released a
new report – called De-Fragmenting Africa: Deepening Regional
Integration. “The Africa market is split into many individual
country markets and many of those countries are small. And
bringing those markets together would bring a lot of
opportunities for people to trade across borders, but (also) to
exploit the benefits of a much larger market. And the book is
about barriers that ordinary traders face every day in trying to
get across borders that are fragmenting those markets,” said
Paul Brenton, the bank’s trade practice leader for the African
region and co-editor of the report. Traditional markets stagnant
He said there are great opportunities for opening new markets.
“For example, in agricultural products, Africa has enormous
potential to produce and sell m