New dawn for trade in
Africa as UK Government commits to North South Corridor
DEPARTMENT FOR
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT News Release (Trade in Africa) issued by
COI News Distribution Service on 6 April 2009
The UK Government
today (MON) committed £100m to transform regional infrastructure
and increase trade across Africa.
The announcement came as Presidents from Kenya, Uganda, South
Africa and Zambia, representatives from the region's economic
communities and top players from the EU, World Bank and African
Development Bank gathered in Lusaka, Zambia, to launch the highly
innovative North South Corridor, which will improve key trade
routes across eight African countries.
At the Conference it was also announced that development partners
have agreed to over $1 billion of funding to upgrade road, rail
and port infrastructure and to support trade facilitation in the region.
The North South Corridor is an unprecedented initiative which
will remove the bottlenecks that currently exist along the main
trading routes throughout the region by speeding up border
crossings, improving railways, roads and ports across east and
southern Africa.
From Lusaka today, the UK's Minister for Trade and
Development, Gareth Thomas said:
"I welcome the North South Corridor and the many
opportunities it has to offer for business in Africa. The North
South Corridor will improve transport networks and encourage new
investment that will, over time, increase prosperity and reduce
poverty in the region.
"In the G20 last week, the Government gave its commitment to
helping to stimulate trade with developing countries and the UK
support for the North South Corridor is a perfect example of what
the Government is doing to help open up business opportunities
across Southern Africa"
Once in place it will open up the area to crucial new business
opportunities in eight African countries: Tanzania, DRC, Zambia,
Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa.
The scheme will upgrade 8000 km of road - the equivalent to the
road distance between Paris and Bejing- and rehabilitate 600 kms
of rail track. It will also work with governments to remove red
tape to allow trade between countries to increase and products to
be transported more quickly.
Transit times at the Chirundu border post, between Zambia and
Zimbabwe - set to become one of the pioneering One Stop Border
Posts under the scheme - will be halved.
The new border post will streamline the process and those passing
through will now only have to submit their documents once. Three
new One Stop Border Posts along the North - South Corridor are
planned by 2012 and others will follow in the region shortly after.
The scheme will be financed by a mix of public and private
investment by donors such as the UK Government, World Bank, EC,
the three regional economic communities in East and Southern
Africa (COMESA, SADC, EAC), international development agencies
and the private sector.
By removing barriers to trade between countries and improving
transport links from the Copperbelt of Zambia and the DRC to the
ports of Tanzania and Southern Africa, the North South Corridor
will increase trading opportunities and dramatically improve
prospects for growth, jobs and reducing poverty across the region.
Businesses will be able to get their goods to market faster and
more cheaply. Consumers will have better access to affordable
food, goods and services. And Southern Africa will be opened up to
a new generation of traders, no longer held back by crippling
delays and bureaucracy, ready to do business in an Africa
that's moving and open to all.
Notes to editors
The North South Corridor programme is led by three Regional
Economic Communities - the Common Market for East and Southern
Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern
African Development Community (SADC)
The estimated total cost of upgrading and maintaining roads along
the NS Corridor is US$7.4 billion over a 20 year period.
Improvements on rail, port and trade facilitation measures will
cost an estimated further US$ 1.3 billion over 5 years. DFID is
committing £100m under its new "TradeMark" programme to
support the North South Corridor and broader Aid for Trade initiatives.
"TradeMark" builds on DFID's very successful
Regional Trade Facilitation Programme (RTFP) that was instrumental
in supporting COMESA, EAC and SADC to formulate the North Couth
Corridor programme as a Tripartite initiative.
In addition to TradeMark, DFID intends to provide at least £10m
to co-finance the World Bank's new Trade Facilitation
Facility (TFF) which is being launched by the World Bank at the
North South Corridor Conference.
The new Trade Facilitation Facility will expand the World
Bank's capacity to assist developing countries remove the
bottlenecks that stop goods moving across borders and prevent trade.
Trade facilitation is an important pillar of the global Aid for
Trade Initiative and is a central part of DFID's Aid for
Trade Strategy. TradeMark and the TFF are two new programmes form
part of DFID's Aid for Trade commitments under that strategy.
DFID News is available on our website at http://www.dfid.gov.uk
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British government's fight against world poverty. One in five
people in the world today, over 1 billion people, live in poverty
on less than one dollar a day.
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