In Casablanca, ECA's 2015 report to feature in panel discussion

Abstract

The Economic Commission for Africa will hold a panel discussion on the current edition of the Economic Report on Africa (ERA) 2015, launched in March this year on the theme, Industrializing through trade. The session will take place during the Global Development Network’s Annual Conference. This year’s report states that African countries show high participation rates in global value chains, but are mostly confined to very low levels, driven by exports of raw material. It notes that intra-African trade in intermediate goods, which is significantly more diversified than the corresponding trade of Africa with the rest of the world, offers opportunities for the creation of regional production networks that could lead to increased value addition and rapid industrialization. However, currently African countries sources 88 per cent of their imported inputs from outside the continent.