International Trade of African Regional Economic Communities

Abstract

African countries and their regional economic communities are trying to achieve integration through free trade, creation of customs unions and organization of common markets and work to expand the volume of total trade, as well as the trade flows between each other. Using some concepts of economic integration theory the book assesses the progress and potential of integration processes in the African regional economic communities regarded as building blocks of the African economic community – CEN-SAD, COMESA, EAC, ECCAS, ECOWAS, IGAD and SADC. The book analyses the development of trade flows of selected RECs and then focuses on the commodity structure of international trade of each selected REC over the last decade. It also analyses the dynamics of trade flows and the trends in trade patterns of African countries and regional economic communities, with special focus on intraregional and intracontinental trade. The book presents the main import and export destinations both in continental and global terms and outlines the trends of African countries’ and regional economic communities’ direction of international trade for the period 2003-2012.