ECOWAS and AfCFTA: Potential Short-Run Impact of a Draft ECOWAS Tariff Offer

DOI

10.2991/jat.k.211011.001How to use a DOI?

Keywords

ECOWAS; TRIST; AfCFTA; tariff liberalisation; common external tariff

Abstract

This study provides an ex ante short-run impact analysis of tariff liberalisation in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) customs union regarding tariff revenue and import values. As with other customs union on the continent, ECOWAS negotiates within the AfCFTA as a bloc (including Mauritania). Tariff revenue losses for a scenario with 97% tariff liberalisation (Categories A and B) amount to around USD $262.7 million at the end of the implementation period, representing 12.5% of total tariff revenue, and USD $201.9 million for a scenario with 90% tariff liberalisation (Category A), representing 9.7% of total tariff revenue. This is more than the USD $54 million inferred from estimates by the World Bank (2020), which assumed 90% tariff liberalisation. Tariff losses for ECOWAS are likely to be larger than previously estimated, mainly because ECOWAS negotiates as a bloc and because its selection of sensitive sectors exempted from liberalisation (Category C) is not optimised at the country level to minimise revenue loss. Import increases on account of ECOWAS tariff concessions under the AfCFTA are estimated to be relatively small (1.3–1.8% total increase). As such, the main worry of ECOWAS policymakers, on aggregate, should not be a deluge of African imports competing with regional or domestic production. Further research is needed to understand the distributional impact among ECOWAS countries and on the benefits of other African countries opening market access to ECOWAS exports.

Copyright

© 2021 African Export-Import Bank. Publishing services by Atlantis Press International B.V.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - JOUR
AU  - Peter Lunenborg
AU  - Thomas Roberts
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/10/17
TI  - ECOWAS and AfCFTA: Potential Short-Run Impact of a Draft ECOWAS Tariff Offer
JO  - Journal of African Trade
SP  - 103
EP  - 114
VL  - 8
IS  - 2 (Special Issue)
SN  - 2214-8523
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/jat.k.211011.001
DO  - 10.2991/jat.k.211011.001
ID  - Lunenborg2021
ER  -