Depressed by COMESA market

During the long weekend I took a trip to the COMESA market to do a bit of shopping. I inadvertently had to negotiate clumsy taxi drivers, obtrusive wheelbarrows and other shoppers before checking out the merchandise on display.  COMESA market was created to be a platform on which member states could sell produce from their countries. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa  (COMESA) itself was founded with a view to increasing and encouraging commerce among and between member countries. Various treaties accompanied by the usual fanfare have since been signed to facilitate the ease of doing business among member nations.

Within months, the market was flooded with Tanzanian, Kenyan and other member country traders jostling for stands. It was said then, that if you wanted the most durable slippers, most comfortable blankets a trip to COMESA market was in order.

A few years down the line, it is unbelievable just how much Chinese merchandise the market now stocks. From socks, to underwear, to clothes to blankets you would have a hard time believing that China is not a member of COMESA. It seems we do have a common market alright, but a common market for Chinese products.

I am reminded of Paul Collier’s words in his book “The Bottom Billion”. In it he notes that merging poor economies like those found in COMESA does not change one fundamental thing about them.

The fact that they are poor.

 Merging them therefore only creates a larger poor economy. It is exactly the case with COMESA whose economies, South Africa apart are not only poor but predominantly consumption oriented. Creating a common market does not answer the basic question of “what exactly will be sold” and since all markets find a way of answering this question, enter China with the answer.

I mean take Zambia for example whose main export is copper (in its unprocessed state), the only contribution it can make towards COMESA is in terms of consumption. The copper goes to China who add value to it and export the finished product back to Zambia where it finds itself on COMESA market. This then is the problem with the COMESA market.

It is only those countries that produce finished products, but do so cheaply and competitively (well compared to China) that benefit from such an arrangement as the COMESA market. It is only logical then that we find COMESA market being flooded by Chinese products, so  much that renaming it the common market for Chinese products wouldn’t be terribly off the mark.

I think the idea of a common market was meant to stir productivity in member countries as the products would have a ready market unencumbered with burdensome export procedures. However without the requisite technology, funding and legal framework in individual countries that encourages entrepreneurship, such a market will only attract foreign goods.

The temptation is to praise yourself and say “ we created a common market” but when that market is merely a platform for Chinese products, it means there is something wrong with the basics.