NAMIBIA is the trade-friendliest country in southern Africa and the second most trade-friendly on the continent as far as across-border activities are concerned, the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Trade Enabling Report for 2009 shows.
The country now ranks 60th out 121 countries worldwide on the Global Trade Enabling Index, up 17 places from last year.
Mauritius is the only African country outshining Namibia, and holds the 33rd position.
Namibia performed significantly better in two of the four pillars used to compile the index, namely market access and business environment.
With market access, the country improved its international standing from 78th place last year to 33rd place this year, while its ranking for business environment jumped from 94 to 54.
Its position regarding border administration remained the same at 79, but it fell back from 71st to 75th place in the category measuring transport and communications infrastructure.
‘This good showing mirrors the favourable results obtained by Namibia in terms of market access, in particular its high share of duty-free imports and high preference margins for exporters,’ the WEF says in the report.
Namibia now ranks fourth in the world for its share of duty-free imports, a remarkable improvement from its 56th place in 2008.
This WEF ranking looks at the share of trade, excluding petroleum, that Namibia imported free of tariff duties whilst taking into account most-favoured nation tariffs and preferential agreements.
‘Additional strengths include the country’s well-developed transport infrastructure and a regulatory environment that is more efficient and transparent than in most neighbouring countries,’ the WEF says.
Namibia ranks amongst the top 50 countries worldwide as far as the factors rating infrastructure are concerned.
These include airport density (12), road congestion (6), quality of air transport infrastructure (45), quality of railroad infrastructure (24), quality of roads (23) and quality of port infrastructure (22).
Unfortunately this is undermined by the quality and availability of transport services, including the timeliness of shipments in reaching their destination (73) and postal service efficiency (70).
Despite being the regional leader, Namibia is plagued by serious trade constraints that hamper its international performance.
In total, the WEF considers 56 different factors impacting across-border trade when they allocate rankings.
Only 17 of these count in Namibia’s favour. The other 39, the report says, are ‘competitive disadvantages’.
With nine of the factors, Namibia even rates below the bottom 21 countries in the world.
These are tariffs faced (101), export documents (114), paved roads (100), ease and affordability of shipment (109), competence of the logistics industry (116), ability and ease of tracking (117), broadband internet subscribers (104) and openness to foreign participation (104).
As far as the ease of hiring foreign labour is concerned, Namibia holds the second worst place in the world.
‘Despite the fairly open access to markets, Namibia’s trade is burdened by heavy administration at the borders. The country ranks a low 84th and 101st for the efficiency of customs procedures and overall import-export procedures, respectively, although business leaders attest that the lack of transparency is not a major problem,’ the WEF says.
Namibia will have to address the poor quality of its transport services and further open the economy to foreign participation to boost across-border trade, the WEF says.
jo-mare@namibian.com.na
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