The United Nations has welcomed the signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area (Afcfta), congratulating the leaders upon creating one of the world’s largest trading blocs with over 50 countries.

In a statement issued by the global body’s secretary general, Antonio Guterres, the United Nations said the move is important towards achieving the sustainable development goals and delivering the African agenda on peace and prosperity.

‘‘With the joint African Union – United Nations Agreement for the implementation of Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, as our common framework, the entire United Nations family stands ready to support the continent as it forges forward the entry into force of the Continental Free Trade Area in the coming months,’‘ read part of the statement.

African leaders on Wednesday signed three major economic agreements during the African Union (AU) Extraordinary Session of Heads of State and Government in Kigali, Rwanda.

44 countries signed the agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area, while 43 heads of state signed the Kigali declaration for the launch of Afcfta and 27 signed protocols relating to Free Movement of Persons,Right of Residence,and Right of Establishment.

Reluctance over ‘Free Movement of Persons’?

The AU Protocol on the Free Movement of Person paved the way for citizens of different member states to be issued with African passports in future and establish businesses anywhere in Africa.

The AU has set a 2018 deadline for the removal of visa requirements for all African citizens in all African countries.

Rwanda eased its travel restrictions starting January this year by allowing travellers from across the world to get a visa-on-arrival, a move adopted in Kenya for Africans.

Governments now have the next six months, by September this year, to ratify the protocol. Those that did not sign can also do so during the window.

Under the protocol, member states are required to remove visa requirements for Africans, allow 90-day stay, and right of residence for any African in a territory other than his or her country of origin.

The protocol also calls for issuance of African passport in corroboration with the AU.

Source: Africa News

China and Cameroon on Thursday agreed to give full play to their sound friendship and great potential for cooperation to further advance bilateral relationship.

The statement came as Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with his Cameroonian counterpart Paul Biya at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Source: Vinhuanet

A British government office has prosecuted a wood importer certified by the Forest Stewardship Council after it was found to have failed to ensure the legality of a shipment of timber from Cameroon.

The Forest Stewardship Council, or FSC, is an international organization dedicated to ensuring companies harvest and source timber according to a set of environmental and social standards. On March 2, a judge ruled that Hardwood Dimensions had violated a set of laws known as the EU Timber Regulation that came into force in March 2013. According to a statement, the company didn’t properly verify that a shipment of ayous(Triplochiton scleroxylon), a tropical tree species used to make furniture and guitars, had been legally harvested in Cameroon.

Simon Counsell, the executive director of the Rainforest Foundation UK, said such legal violations by certified companies were “red flags.”

“To me, what that points to is simply that the FSC system isn’t working properly,” Counsell said in an interview.

Simon Marsden, a director of Hardwood Dimensions, said the violation demonstrated the stringency of the EU’s laws governing timber imports, in a statement from the Timber Trade Federation, an industry organization.

“As a company, we felt we had adequate procedures in place, particularly in this case as we were purchasing FSC Certified material,” Marsden said. “However, this is clearly not the case and we admitted that for this one particular supply line our Due Diligence systems were deficient.”

Hardwood Dimensions has held an FSC chain of custody certificate since 2000, meaning it is required to perform checks “at every stage of processing.”

A company has the “sole responsibility” to verify that its supply chain is legal, said David Hopkins, managing director of the Timber Trade Federation, in the group’s statement.

“FSC alone is no guarantee of having complied with legal process,” Hopkins added.

In an email obtained by Mongabay, an FSC representative said the organization was “closely studying” this case and had reported the incident to one of its partners, Accreditation Services International (ASI).

Firms like ASI are supposed to ensure that timber buyers comply with FSC standards. But the fact that ASI as the certifier didn’t turn up this gap in Hardwood Dimensions’ due diligence raises the question of whether certifiers might have missed other issues in the past, said Rainforest Foundation UK’s Counsell.

“The certifying companies aren’t identifying problems of illegality within the companies that they’re certifying,” he said, “and the FSC isn’t checking that the certifiers are doing their job properly.”

The judge ordered Hardwood Dimensions to pay 4,000 pounds ($5,570) plus court costs in a case brought by the U.K.’s Office for Product Safety and Standards, the British agency in charge of EU Timber Regulation enforcement.

The Timber Trade Federation statement said “none of the material imported was from an illegal source,” according to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which houses the Office for Product Safety and Standards.

But Counsell said “They must have had good information to know that that timber was at least questionable,” particularly when it was coming from a “high-risk country” for timber like Cameroon.

A court last year fined U.K. furniture importer Lombok 5,000 pounds ($6,970), plus court costs, for a similar violation of failing to do its due diligence on wood furniture brought in from India.

Source: news.mongabay.com

More than 30 participants met last week to evaluate the outcomes of a project aimed at reducing the illegal timber in supply chains between Cameroon and China, the world’s largest importer of timber and a key consumer, processor and re-exporter of timber products, increasingly to and from Africa.

The three-year project and workshop were funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and aimed to increase compliance with timber harvest and trade controls along the supply chain from Cameroon to China and the European Union.

Those attending included representatives of the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF), Cameroon Customs, the Regional Intelligence and Liaison Office of the World Customs Organization for Central Africa (RILO-CA), International NGOs, civil society organizations and local community representatives.

Key outcomes of the project they discussed included: commitments made by Chinese businesses to respect legality definitions and source timber from sustainably managed forests in Cameroon; new tools to enhance timber legality adherence including a timber trade legality manual and handbook; and increased engagement and improved capacity of local communities to engage and benefit from legal and sustainable timber trade.

“Overall, there was very positive engagement between timber producers in Cameroon and timber traders in China thanks to the long-term engagement, which helped build trust and mutual understanding,” said Dr Paulinus Ngeh, TRAFFIC’s Regional Director for Central Africa.

China makes a significant contribution to Cameroon’s forestry sector and economic growth: some 60% of all Cameroon timber exports currently go to China and Chinese investments in Cameroon’s forestry sector increased exponentially between 2004 and 2016. China consumed some 550 million m3 of timber and its by-products in 2015, and wood imports are extrapolated to reach almost 100 million m3 by 2018.

According to Mrs Hortense Batindek, the Project Technical Assistant and representative of the Network of Forestry and Environmental Training Institutions of Central Africa (French acronym RIFFEAC[1]): “The work done in developing the various training tools on timber legality definitions for use by Chinese timber operators and other actors in Cameroon should be used to build the capacity of Forest Law Enforcement Officers both in the field and in training institutions.”

Culled from www.traffic.org

Africa’s richest man Nigerian billionaire Alhaji Aliko Dangote may be top of the rankings in Africa but at the global level, he rounded off as the 100th richest.

This is according to U.S.-based Forbes Magazine in the latest release of its annual list of the world’s richest persons (2018).

With a fortune estimated at $14.1 billion, CEO of the Dangote group who has significant business interests in cement production across Africa and agriculture back home maintained a slot he has occupied for a while now.

Two other Nigerian billionaires who made the list were oil and telecoms mogul Mike Adenuga whose fortune is currently estimated at $5.3 billion.

Folorunsho Alakija, a self-made businesswoman in the oil sector is also on the list. Alakija has various interests but known mainly for her oil business, she with a fortune estimated at $1.7 billion.

Angola’s Isabel dos Santos, who has stakes in telecommunications , oil and gas and also banking – maintained her place as the continent’s richest woman with a net worth of $2.6 billion.

She is daughter to former Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos and was fired as chairperson of the Angola’s state oil company by new President Joao Lourenco on allegations of financial impropriety – she flatly denies all the allegations.

Other Africans on the list are Zimbabwean telecoms tycoon Strive Masiwiya ($1.39 billion) and South African mining magnate Patrice Motsepe ($2.5billion.)

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos estimated to be worth $112 billion topped for the first time unseating Bill Gates with a fortune of $90 billion who came second in the list released on Wednesday (March 7).

Source: Africa News

The ports of Antwerp and Douala in Cameroon are to collaborate closely with each other over the next five years. The collaboration agreement was signed on Wednesday this week during an extensive visit by Antwerp port representatives to the port of Douala in Cameroon.

Douala port authority  is counting on the Antwerp know-how in order to boost the efficiency of its port operations, among other things. For Antwerp the agreement represents a way to maintain and further strengthen its position as market leader in West and Central Africa.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Cyrus Ngo’o, CEO of the Port Autonome de Douala,and by Marc Van Peel and Kristof Waterschoot, respectively chairman and managing director of APEC and PAI, the two subsidiaries of Antwerp Port Authority that are responsible for among other things training maritime professionals and for consultancy tasks in foreign ports.

Also this week, Antwerp Port Authority is organising a roadshow in Cameroon with an extensive delegation from the Antwerp port community. This is only the second time that the port has held a roadshow in Africa, and it is no accident that this time the choice has fallen upon Cameroon.

“With its exports of freight items such as timber and cacao, Cameroon has huge potential in Antwerp, which already has players active in these segments,” declared port alderman Marc Van Peel. “Moreover the port has a good balance between imports and exports, which is also a distinguishing feature of Antwerp,” he added.

Antwerp handles an annual volume of 15 million tonnes of West African freight. At the other end of the trade, international studies have showed that the volume of containers handled in West African ports has grown enormously since 2009.

“The same studies show that these ports are liable to have considerable further growth in container trade in the immediate future,” the alderman added. “Antwerp offers the greatest number of direct shipping services to West Africa, making it the ideal gateway to Europe for this trade,” he concluded.

Antwerp may well be busy with its second roadshow in this region, but the port has long been active in West Africa. Last week Antwerp Port Authority also signed a collaboration agreement with the port of Dakar in Senegal, and a few months ago the port of Cotonou in Benin decided to contract out its port operation to Port of Antwerp International (PAI) with a view to further modernisation.

Finally, consultants from PAI and APEC have been busy in the port of Conakry (Guinea) since 2016 under the terms of an agreement for further development of the port. The port of Douala lies on the Wouri river and is the leading port in the CEMAC economic zone (Central African Economic and Monetary Community). In 2016 it handled a freight volume of around 12 million tonnes.

However, the port is now at maximum capacity and so is eager to call upon the expertise of Antwerp in order to expand its output. Under the terms of the MoU, APEC (Antwerp Port Training Centre) will examine the possibility of organising training courses for dock workers with a view to maximising the efficiency of port operations.

In the meantime APEC, which has already helped to train maritime professionals from Douala, will provide standard seminars and training courses. Consultants from PAI will also offer their expertise in making the most efficient use of the available port area. Finally, the agreement includes commitments in the field of marketing, exchange of information and best practices, and organising joint commercial events in order to promote both ports.

Source: MarineLink