Purpose

The paper is a preliminary assessment of coronavirus disease’s (COVID-19) effects on African trade, policy responses and opportunities within the limitations imposed by data and the information currently available and in the lights of other international organizations’ growth forecasts. The study was undertaken to get deeper understanding of the threats and opportunities of COVID-19 on African trade because of the existing interconnected trade networks making African countries to be more vulnerable and increasing number of restrictions and distortions among major traders. This study aims to present strong information required in underpinning sound national, regional and inter-regional policy responses to keep trade flowing.

Design/methodology/approach

To assess COVID-19’s effects on African trade, policy responses and opportunities, this study relied on data and information currently available from organizations such as World Trade Organization (WTO), World Bank (WB), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, International Monetary Fund, European Union, International Trade Statistics and various African countries’ trade and national statistics publications. The analysis contains two main scenarios. The first, an observed effects scenario (first quarter of year 2020), looks at the observed effect of COVID-19 outbreak on trade in Africa. The second, a potential effects scenario, analyses the potential trade effects if the COVID-19 outbreak lingers and spreads more intensively than is assumed in the baseline scenario.

Findings

The COVID-19 outbreak affects several aspects of international trade even though the full effects of the outbreak are not yet visible in most trade data. Some leading indicators had shown that keeping trade flow can support the fight against COVID-19 as well as having damaging effect on Africa’s trade. COVID-19 had led to a deep fall in transaction, both at the international level and within-regions. Tariffs and other restrictions to imports harm the flow of critical products to African countries. Uncooperative trade policies lead to higher prices of goods in fragile and vulnerable African countries.

Research limitations/implications

Long term in-depth analysis of the effects of COVID-19 on trade using quantitative data is still very difficult because of paucity of data and the great level of the improbability of the trajectory of the spread of the virus. Informed assessment of the full trade impact of the pandemic on African countries is therefore still difficult. Notwithstanding, this study assesses the immediate effects and conveys the likely extent of impending African trade pains and the potential needs for assistance.

Practical implications

Trade in both goods and services plays a key role in overcoming the pandemic and limit its effects by providing access to essential medical goods to treat those affected, ensuring access to food, providing farmers with needed inputs, support jobs and sustain economic activity during global recession. However, temporary COVID-19 trade measures such as borders closure, export prohibition and import ban are a threat to globalization and free trade agreements engaged by some African countries.

Social implications

The continuous rise in COVID-19 cases is expected to trigger economic recession in Africa despite a rapid expansion and creation of new social protection programmes. The unavoidable decline in trade caused by COVID-19 is already having painful consequences on the economy, social anxiety among families, households, businesses and trade across countries in the continent. COVID-19 trade restrictions aimed at reducing the transmission of the virus have led to loss of income and jobs as well as closure of small and vulnerable businesses. Policymakers should enforce social policies that unite countries within the continents in bad times to reduce social anxiety and hardship.

Originality/value

Although the effects of COVID-19 outbreak on global and regional trade have received enormous attention recently, facts in the form of data have been thin particularly on African trade. This paper, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is one of the first set of studies that provides preliminary assessment of COVID-19’s effects on trade in Africa using scenarios-building approach based on the available data and information on regional trade, complemented by those from the WTO, WB and departments of trade and statistics from various African countries such as the Nigeria Nation Bureau of Statistic and Kenyan National Bureau of Statistics.

中文翻译：

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非洲的COVID-19爆发的贸易影响，政策对策和机遇

目的

本文是对冠状病毒病（COVID-19）对非洲贸易，政策对策和机遇的影响的初步评估，其依据是数据和现有信息的局限性以及其他国际组织的增长预测。进行这项研究是为了加深对COVID-19对非洲贸易的威胁和机遇的了解，因为现有的相互联系的贸易网络​​使非洲国家变得更加脆弱，并且主要贸易商之间的限制和扭曲行为越来越多。这项研究旨在提供强有力的信息，以支持合理的国家，区域和区域间政策对策，以保持贸易畅通。

设计/方法/方法

为了评估COVID-19对非洲贸易，政策对策和机遇的影响，本研究依赖于世界贸易组织（WTO），世界银行（WB），经济合作与发展组织，国际货币基金组织，欧盟，国际贸易统计以及非洲各个国家的贸易和国家统计出版物。分析包含两个主要方案。第一个是观察到的影响情景（2020年第一季度），观察了观察到的COVID-19爆发对非洲贸易的影响。第二种是潜在影响情景，它分析了如果COVID-19爆发比基线情景中所假设的更持久地蔓延和扩散，将产生潜在的贸易影响。

发现

即使在大多数贸易数据中尚看不到爆发的全部影响，COVID-19爆发也会影响国际贸易的多个方面。一些主要指标表明，保持贸易流量可以支持与COVID-19的斗争，并且对非洲的贸易具有破坏性影响。COVID-19导致国际和区域内交易的大幅下降。关税和其他进口限制损害了关键产品向非洲国家的流动。不合作的贸易政策导致脆弱和脆弱的非洲国家商品价格上涨。

研究局限/意义

由于数据的缺乏和病毒传播轨迹的可能性极高，使用定量数据对COVID-19对贸易的影响进行长期的深入分析仍然非常困难。因此，仍然很难对大流行对非洲国家的全面贸易影响进行知情评估。尽管如此，这项研究评估了直接影响，并传达了非洲即将遭受贸易痛苦的可能程度以及潜在的援助需求。

实际影响

货物和服务贸易在克服大流行和限制其影响方面起着关键作用，它提供了基本的医疗产品来治疗受灾者，确保获得食物，为农民提供所需的投入，支持工作并在全球经济衰退期间维持经济活动，从而限制了其流行。但是，临时的COVID-19贸易措施，例如边界关闭，出口禁令和进口禁令，对全球化和一些非洲国家签署的自由贸易协定构成了威胁。

社会影响

尽管迅速扩大并制定了新的社会保护计划，但预计COVID-19病例的持续增加将引发非洲的经济衰退。由COVID-19引起的不可避免的贸易下降已经给非洲大陆各国的经济，家庭，家庭，企业和贸易之间的社会焦虑造成了痛苦的后果。旨在减少病毒传播的COVID-19贸易限制导致收入和工作机会减少，并关闭了脆弱的小企业。政策制定者应执行社会政策，在困难时期团结各大陆国家，以减少社会焦虑和苦难。

创意/价值

尽管最近爆发了COVID-19对全球和区域贸易的影响，但数据形式的事实却很少，尤其是在非洲贸易方面。就作者所知，本文是第一组研究之一，该研究使用基于区域贸易的可用数据和信息的情景构建方法对COVID-19对非洲贸易的影响进行了初步评估，并进行了补充。来自世界贸易组织，世界银行以及非洲各个国家贸易和统计部门的人员，例如尼日利亚国家统计局和肯尼亚国家统计局。