2.4

3.4

3.8

4.6

4.7

6.0

6.4

6.5

-7.4

-4.8

-4.6

-2.9

-3.0

-11.0

0.2

-0.1

-15.0 -10.0 -5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0

IGAD

SADC

COMESA

CEN-SAD

UMA

EAC

ECCAS

ECOWAS

current account balance/GDP Annual average growth rates

AFRICAN UNION COMMISSION ECONOMIC AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT

STATISTICS DIVISION P.O.Box: 3243 – Roosvelt Street – W21 K19

Tel: +251 11 51 82 670 / Fax: +251 11 551 78 44 Email: crepinn@africa-union.org

website: www.austat.org

Belong to two RECs Belong to three RECs Belong to four RECs

This Statistical Monitor intends to give a quick

overview about how Regional Economic

Communities (RECs) are performing and what

are the outlook.

Figure 6: Share of current account balance in GDP and annual average growth rates , 2013 (%)

Countries Mapping and membership by Regional Economic Communities

plus with ECCAS at about $23 billion, and $5 billion for ECOWAS. But the three highest levels of exports and imports are reached in order by CEN-SAD, SADC and COMESA. Currrent account balance and growth rate The current account balance gives information about the eco-nomy’s health of RECs. It seems in the figure 6 there is a cor-relation between the current account balance and the annual average growth rate in the most of RECs, except EAC. The tendance is that as one goes along the deficit of the current account balance increases, the annual growth rate decrases. ECCAS with an annual growth around 6.4% is the only one REC that have registered a positive current account balance. It follows by ECOWAS although it shows a deficif of current account balance around 1% . All RECs got a positive growth rate in 2013 and it confirms the economic boom that we have been observing across the continent in recent years.

In respect of this, it is clear that the entire RECs are commit-ted to the regional economic integration by putting in place policies and implementing political will in order to reach macroeconomic convergence and developement of their REC

respectively. However this performance is related to the distri-bution of indicators. From this analysis, among RECs that are standing out from the rest, we can quote : EAC, ECOWAS, CEN-SAD and ECCAS.

Source: Unctad

Source: AUC

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Population size GDP per capita us dollars

51.3%

48.7%

Male Female

0.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

6.2 6.05.3

3.12.4 2.4

0.4 0.2

3.2 3.8

3.3

1.9 3.42.7

2.01.3

Re mittances FDI

Figure 1: Distribution of agriculture labour force in Africa, 2013

Figure 2: Population size and GDP per capita, 2012

Figure 4: Share of remittances and inward FDI flows in GDP, 2012 (%)

Figure 5: Trade in goods and services, 2013 (millions US)

(million) (us dollars)

Labour force in Africa The African population reached one billion in 2009 and conti-nues to growth, It could double to nearly two billion by 2050. Although for ten years unprecedented economic growth has been observed in Africa, mojority of people are still living on less than $2 a day and 60% of African population are wor-king in agriculture . With 51.3% of female and 48.7% of Male working in that area, there is inequality in gender balance due

0

5

10

15

20

25

ECCAS UMA COMESA CEN-SAD ECOWAS IGAD SADC EAC

2000 2006 2012

Figure 3: Trend of regional intra-trade (%)

-100 0 100 200 300 400

EAC

IGAD

ECCAS

ECOWAS

UMA

COMESA

SADC

CEN-SAD

Exports Imports Balance

to the fact that women workforce in Agriculture is slightly higher than men workforce. Population size and GDP per capita CEN-SAD is the most populous RECs with a population of 567,5 million inhabitants and accounted for over a half of the African’s population in 2012 , UMA is the least populated RECs with the highest GDP per capita amongst all the RECs, estimated around $3,226.91 in 2012. Although among the least populated RECs and among the richest, geologicaly speaking, ECCAS registers a GDP per capita of $945.21 while SADC registers a GDP per capita of about $1,687, which express a good economic health observed over couple

years ago. However, it concludes that in spite of economic growth registers within RECs, the population growth is not proportional to GDP per capita.

Intra-regional trade The development of intra-trade can be an opportunity to scale up regional integration and economic growth. The graph below

shows in recent years intra-trade has globaly increased although in some RECs, such as SADC, ECOWAS and ECCAS it has de-creased between 2000 and 20012.

The lower level of intra-trade is observed in ECCAS at the rate of 0.78% and the upper level is observed in EAC at 20.9%. With this

rate EAC is the REC that have made most progress in terms of intra-trade, it is followed by IGAD and ECOWAS. These figures show the lowest rate of intra-trade is in ECCAS and descreased from 0.9% to 0.7%, between 2000 to 2012. That means roughly 99.3% of ECCAS’ trade is made with the rest of the world. We learn from the Figure 4 that in 2012 and in the following RECs: Cen-sad, Ecowas, Comesa and Uma, workers’ remit-tances were higher than Foreign direct investment (FDI). This shows the growth impacts of migrant remittances to the deve-lopment of the RECs aforementioned. However, the trend of the other remaining RECs informs that FDI represents a big-ger part of the inflows and in ECCAS for instance, remittances are insignificant and represent just 0.2% of GDP in 2012. This illustrates that remittances and FDI are complements at regional level and the development structure based on remit-tances and FDI is not the same in the entire of RECs. Trade in goods and services The figure of trade in goods and services shows that only ECCAS and ECOWAS are running a surplus in trade, the sur-

Source: Unctad

Source: Unctad

Source: Unctad

Source: Unctad Source: Unctad