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TRUCKING MARKETS * Ghana - Delays at ports affect importers, exporters
A 2008 World Bank study reported that each day of delays along an export corridor reduces a country’s export volumes by about one percent
Accra,Ghana -GBN -23 April, 2009: -- Of all costs aside from taxes that importers and exporters pay, delays at various ports plague the movement of goods and people with negative consequences and account for the largest chunk representing as much as 70 percent, a new research has shown... A sub-regional study conducted last year by the Hub identifies overloading trucks as a common problem which prompts checkpoint officials like policemen and custom officials to extort bribes from truckers... Additionally, the trucks carrying goods across the region are mostly old and break down too often, decreasing efficiency and contributing to road accidents and fatalities... Truck drivers in the informal sector are also often illiterate. This adds to delays of imports and exports which take place in a bureaucratic environment of documentation... A 2008 World Bank study partly blamed the region’s high costs for road transportation on the lack of competition within the sector... The study said that agreement between coastal countries and landlocked countries that allocate one-third of cargo to trucking companies in the coastal country and two-thirds to those in the landlocked country had allowed monopolies to develop. Experts urged African governments to consider dismantling the systems that cause the monopolies... (Photo from wikipedia, by Stig Nygaard -Copenhagen,Denmark-: High load truck Ghana 2006)
* Zimbabwe - Export Competitiveness Gains World Popularity
Harare,Zimbabwe -All Africa -24 April 2009: -- Export competitiveness has become the buzzword in the new thrust for rapid economic growth and development in the world's less developed countries. Landlocked countries such as Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, DRC and other Sadc states remain encumbered by the high transport costs for their major exports due to poor infrastructure and facilities on their trade routes... It takes two to three for a single cargo of copper from the Zambian Copperbelt to reach Durban at present, for example, compared with 48 hours in Europe over the same distance. With the price of copper plummeting on the world markets, the loss of income to Zambia becomes phenomenal when you take into account the transport costs... This is exacerbated further by the inefficiency of the North-South Corridor, linking the Southern African hinterland to Durban, and which carries the highest volumes and freight in the region. This indeed makes the cost of trading and transport in the region rank amongst the highest in the world. It is estimated that, on average, transport costs in Southern Africa are more than 70 percent higher than in Europe and the United States. Competitiveness for exports is thus compromised... (Photo hill-delamain.co.zm: Hill & Delamain -Zambia- Road Freight)
posted by Unknown @ 11:54 AM
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