The COMESA Committee on Trade Remedies has started reviewing the 2002 Regulations on Trade Remedy Measures which have been in existence for more than 20 years. Trade experts believe that once amended, these remedies can help significantly boost intra-regional trade which has remained at less than 10% on average over the last few years.
The need to align them with new trends in trade development is in line with the decision of the 44th COMESA Council of Ministers Meeting in 2023 that called for the operationalisation of the Committee on Trade Remedies to oversee the application of the Regulations on Trade Remedy Measures.
The main objective of the review is to investigate whether trade remedies are well applied to prevent injury across all sectors of the economy in the COMESA Member States that may be caused by unfair trading practices and unforeseen surges in imports.
The Committee is also expected to report annually and make recommendations to the COMESA Trade and Customs Committee.
To activate this process, the second Meeting of the Trade Remedies Committee was held virtually on 4 and 5 September 2024 and officially opened by the COMESA Assistant Secretary General for Programmes Amb. Dr Mohamed Kadah who urged the region to guard against the inappropriate application of the remedies that may result in Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs).
He pledged COMESA Secretariat’s commitment to provide capacity building to Member States to ensure none of the remedy measures are applied in a manner to protect Member State domestic markets disregarding their commitment in the implementation of the COMESA Free Trade Area.
“The amendment of the Regulations should ensure relevance to the current trade related daily challenges faced by COMESA including the never ending NTBs that prevent the increase in intra-COMESA trade,” said Dr Kadah.
Latest COMESA statistics show that despite much progress realised in the implementation of the COMESA FTA, intra trade has remained low in the last few years, while exports to the European Union, the major export destination, increased by 24% from US$72bn in 2021 to US$90bn in 2022.
China has remained COMESA’s second largest export destination with a 22% increase recorded US$20bn in 2021 to us$24bn in 2022.
The delegates were encouraged to reflect on key points such as why the region trades more with external markets and not within. What is the role of trade remedies in restrictions to trade? To what extent have the trade remedy measures translated into NTBs thereby prohibiting intra-regional trade and what should be the right regulation on trade remedies that respond to the current situation of the COMESA region and contribute to an increase of intra-COMESA trade.
The meeting agreed on the need for a proper revision of the regulations to ensure important aspects of trade are taken into consideration to ensue free movement of goods and services is achieved with fair trade practice across the region.
The meeting also received a report on the Kenya Sugar Safeguard which has been in existence for more than 20 years and ends in 2025.