Abstract: Based on a detailed empirical study, this paper argues that regional liberalization of trucking services has had an important effect on transport costs and tariffs for Zambia's economy. Zambia is a peculiar example in Southern Africa as it benefits from relatively low transport costs compared with other landlocked countries in Africa. This is mainly because of competition between Zambian and other regional, mainly South African, operators and because of South African investments in Zambia's trucking industry. As a result, the costs of operators registered in Zambia and South Africa are similar. The study also demonstrates that enhancing trucking interoperability in Southern Africa would significantly impact positively the Zambian trucking industry's competitiveness. The main measures to significantly increase trucking competitiveness in the region would more likely derive from reducing fuel costs in Zambia, improving border-post operations, and relaxing South African truck import rules.
Based on a detailed empirical study, this paper argues that regional liberalization of trucking services has had an important effect on transport costs and tariffs for Zambia's economy. Zambia is a peculiar example in Southern Africa as it benefits from relatively low transport costs compared with other landlocked countries in Africa. This is mainly because of competition between Zambian and other regional, mainly South African, operators and because of South African investments in Zambia's trucking industry. As a result, the costs of operators registered in Zambia and South Africa are similar. The study also demonstrates that enhancing trucking interoperability in Southern Africa would significantly impact positively the Zambian trucking industry's competitiveness. The main measures to significantly increase trucking competitiveness in the region would more likely derive from reducing fuel costs in Zambia, improving border-post operations, and relaxing South African truck import rules.
In most regions of the world, road transport is the predominant channel of international trade traffic. Yet the agreements used by states to regulate international road transport services often lack transparency. This study sheds light on such agreements and identifies potential focus areas for reform.
There are various reasons why the road asset in Zambia has been deteriorating over the past five decades since independence. Much effort to restore the road asset to its original value and keep it maintained in a good and safe condition was initiated in mid 1990s with the launch of the Road Sector Investment Plan – Phase I, which was immediately followed by the launch of a Phase II to run from 2003 to 2013. It is my appreciation that many diagnostic studies into road financing strategies which could have led to inefficient road asset management in Zambia have been undertaken, and various solutions tendered. The author takes cognizance that resource mobilization for road construction and maintenance, and subsequent allocation to respective road programs can often be problematic for an emerging country like Zambia. It has the potential to lead to inefficiencies in road asset management as has evidently been demonstrated in the declining road asset value over time. The political, as well as the economic, landscape plays a vital role in resource mobilization and allocation strategies as much as the institutional and the legal framework do. The failure to clear the backlog of maintenance which normally results, largely, from deferment of scheduled maintenance due to insufficient annual budgetary allocation to the road sector maintenance programs has led to the significant deterioration in road network condition. Exorbitant road construction costs have posed additional challenges to the fiscus, thereby constraining both the quantity and quality of road infrastructure that could be constructed and maintained at any given time. Recent policy drives have been categorical in their preference of new road construction aimed at linking Zambia, over road maintenance, which plays a pivotal role in road asset management. This creates a perception that policy pronouncements are at variance to policy documents which promote sustainable economic development through efficient road investments and could be seen as being paradoxical in that the actual financing strategies are skewed towards road construction, a recipe of comfort for the next election challenge due to increased visibility on the ground, rather than to maintenance, as an astute and effective way of managing the road asset. The difficult of establishing congruence between government pronouncements and actual road business strategies in the implementing agencies has, over the years, posed challenges to the fiscal policy implementation. Consequently, this has often led to serious budget overruns due, firstly, to unplanned expenditure and, secondly, variations due to scope increase resulting from project implementation without having prior designs. This has led to high operating inefficiencies of existing roads due to the high level of pavement degradation, with the eventual effect of higher vehicle operating costs, longer travel-times, driver and passenger discomfort, and ultimately, higher agency pavement replacement costs. The damage caused to the economy is apparent in all this. The author carried out an analysis of road financing strategies in Zambia, taking a special look into the past decade, with the view to ascertaining the extent to which roads budgets have been employed to fund new construction and maintenance. This was necessary to establish whether there was a mismatch in allocation of resources for roads in terms of needs and policy, in which new road construction is highly favored in preference to maintenance. It was hoped that if the mismatch existed, it would espouse some paradoxes which existed between the road asset management policies and actual strategies.
The 'Trade and Transport Facilitation Assessment' (TTFA) is a tool for identifying inefficiencies in international supply chains that limit a country s ability to compete in international trade. The TTFA examines problems that affect not only exports competitiveness, but also the ability to import and distribute inputs to production and consumer goods. This new TTFA toolkit was developed to meet the growing demand for facilitation and logistics reforms in an environment of increasing global competition and expanded trade in intermediate goods. It reflects practical experience and the change in the nature of demand from developing countries. The TTFA focuses on simplification and harmonization of trade-related procedures and identifies the opportunities for improving logistics services, infrastructure, and the overall performance of specific supply chains. It also outlines practices to develop plans of action with proper interactions with government agencies and stakeholders.
The Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) was concluded among the countries of Southeastern Europe with the aim to promote further trade integration. The agreement states the objective to 'expand trade in goods and services and foster investment by means of fair, clear, stable and predictable rules.' While recent literature on trade in the CEFTA region has focused on analyzing trade in goods, the purpose of the paper is to identify the remaining barriers to trade in services among the CEFTA countries. The paper presents: (i) the economic and trade importance of the service sector in CEFTA countries, and (ii) the existing barriers to trade in services between CEFTA countries, with a focus on four sectors: construction, land transport, legal and information technology (ICT) services. The analysis shows that the export of services has a significant share in CEFTA countries. These countries have achieved considerable market openness, mostly in the context of pursuing WTO and EU accession. Nonetheless, obstacles to trade in services remain. Some, such as the movement of professional workers, are of general nature, while others are sector specific.
Enabling the Business of Agriculture 2016 provides a tool for policy makers to identify and analyze legal barriers for the business of agriculture and to quantify transaction costs of dealing with government regulations. Building on an earlier progress report published in November 2014, this volume presents the main results for 40 countries, for the first time using indicator scores to showcase good practices among countries in different stages of agricultural development. It also presents interesting results on the relationship between efficiency and quality of regulations, discriminatory practices in the laws, and whether regulatory information is accessible. Regional, income-group, and country-specific trends and data observations are presented on six topics: seed, fertilizer, machinery, finance, markets, and transport. The report also discusses the continued development of several topics that will be added in future reports: information and communication technology, land, water, livestock, gender, and environmental sustainability.
