Transport Prices and Costs in Africa: A Review of the Main International Corridors (Directions in Development)

Transport Prices and Costs in Africa: A Review of the Main International Corridors (Directions in Development) Review

Transport prices for most African landlocked countries range from 15 to 20 percent of import costs. This is approximately two to three times more than in most developed countries. It is well known that weak infrastructure can account for low trade performance. Thus, it becomes necessary to understand what types of regional transport services operate in landlocked African nations and it is critical to identify the regulation disparities and provision anomalies that hurt infrastructure efficiency, even when the physical infrastructure such as a road transport corridor exists. Transport Prices and Costs in Africa analyzes the various reasons for poor transport performance seen widely throughout Africa and provides a compelling case for a number of national and regional reforms that are vital to the effort to address the underlying causes of high transport prices and costs and service unpredictability seen in Africa. The book will greatly help supervisory authorities throughout the region develop and implement a comprehensive transport policy that will facilitate long-term growth.

The 2011 Import and Export Market for Machines for Making Paper Cartons, Boxes, Cases, Tubes, Drums, or Similar Containers in Africa

The 2011 Import and Export Market for Machines for Making Paper Cartons, Boxes, Cases, Tubes, Drums, or Similar Containers in Africa Review

On the demand side, exporters and strategic planners approaching the market in Africa face a number of questions. Which countries are supplying machines for making paper cartons, boxes, cases, tubes, drums, or similar containers to Africa? What is the dollar value of these imports? How much do the imports of machines for making paper cartons, boxes, cases, tubes, drums, or similar containers vary from one country to another in Africa? Do exporters serving the market in Africa have similar market shares across the importing countries? On the supply side, Africa also sells to the international market of machines for making paper cartons, boxes, cases, tubes, drums, or similar containers. Which countries in Africa supply the most exports of machines for making paper cartons, boxes, cases, tubes, drums, or similar containers? Which countries are buying their exports? What is the value of these exports and which countries are the largest buyers?

This report was created for strategic planners, international marketing executives and import/export managers who are concerned with the market for machines for making paper cartons, boxes, cases, tubes, drums, or similar containers in Africa. With the globalization of this market, managers can no longer be contented with a local view. Nor can managers be contented with out-of-date statistics that appear several years after the fact. I have developed a methodology, based on macroeconomic and trade models, to estimate the market for machines for making paper cartons, boxes, cases, tubes, drums, or similar containers for those countries serving Africa via exports or supplying from Africa via imports. We do so for the current year based on a variety of key historical indicators and econometric models.

In what follows, Chapter 2 begins by summarizing where Africa fits into the world market for imported and exported machines for making paper cartons, boxes, cases, tubes, drums, or similar containers. The total level of imports and exports on a worldwide basis, and those for Africa in particular, is based on a model which aggregates across over 150 key country markets and projects these to the current year. From there, each country represents a percent of the world market. This market is served from a number of competitive countries of origin. Based on both demand- and supply-side dynamics, market shares by country of origin are then calculated across each country market destination. These shares lead to a volume of import and export values for each country and are aggregated to regional and world totals. In doing so, we are able to obtain maximum likelihood estimates of both the value of each market and the shares that countries in Africa are likely to receive this year. From these figures, rankings are calculated to allow managers to prioritize markets within Africa. In this way, all the figures provided in this report are forecasts that can be combined with internal information for strategic planning purposes.