Query: Comesa

title: Linkages between Financial Factors and Financial Development: A Panel Data Approach for Comesa Region
abstract: The concept of financial development has been a topical issue of research among scholars and policymakers in developing and developed countries in the world because it affects economic growth. However, there has been no consensus on the relationship between economic growth and financial development. Therefore this paper sought to determine the linkage between financial factors and financial development in 19 COMESA Countries. The specific objectives were to establish the effect of international remittances, financial access, inflation and foreign direct investment on financial development in COMESA Countries. The paper was guided by the financegrowth nexus theory. Data was collected from the IMF and World Bank database for analysis for the period. Fixed effect regression was used as established by use of the General Method of Moments. The results indicated that financial access, foreign direct investment and GDP had a significant effect on financial development in COMESA countries (p values 0.05) Therefore, results are expected to provide a basis for policy reference and also stimulate debate on financial development in developing countries under regional integration. The study is expected to generate new knowledge by indicating the relationship between financial factors, economic growth, and financial development. In particular, each COMESA Country should streamline policies aimed at encouraging FDI inflows, increasing economic growth, as well as designing Diaspora policies to encourage foreign remittances and foster financial development.  2014; Abu Bada and AbuQarn 2006) In most developing countries, including SSA, the financial services sector is underdeveloped to play its role of intermediation and thus quest to bridge the gap between demand and supply of credit (Wolf, 2003) The financial services sector act as an intermediary between borrowers and savers in emerging economies of the world. The Government needs the financial sector to supplement any budget deficits that arise in any financial year (Adams et al. 2018) Despite the importance of financial sector development, Sub Saharan Africa is relatively less underdeveloped and diversified as compared to other regions of the World. The insurance industry in Africa is at its infant stage and relatively underdeveloped as compared to other emerging economies as indicated by Otchere (2011) The result from this study indicates that the insurance market in some African Countries has focused on non life insurance which represents about 85% of the industry. The proxy to insurance companies is the number of insurance firms in the industry. Further, Otchere (2011) argue that Stock markets which form part of the financial sector in Sub Saharan Africa are very few and small in size as compared to those in the developed World. The proxy to stock markets is the number of listed companies and market capitalization. The stock exchange trading systems in Africa are inefficient since they use manual trading and clearing system. The manual system of trading in Africa is an impediment to operational efficiencies as well as liquidity. However, a few African Countries have adopted automated systems such as Johannesburg securities exchange in South Africa, Nigerian Stock Exchange in Nigeria; Namibian stock exchange in Namibia, Stock exchange Mauritius and Nairobi Stock Exchange in Kenya.Bond markets in Africa according to Otchere (2011) are not well developed or at best at its infancy stage or are absent altogether in many African Countries. Most Countries do not have secondary bond market apart from Nigeria. Further, most Countries do not have a wide range of treasury bills and bonds except South Africa which has a developed Government bond market. The banking sector indicates that African financials are characterized by the small banking system and that banks are poor in channeling deposits to the most efficient uses, signaling low intermediation efficiency (Lavine, (1997) Similarly, Adams et al. (2018) share the same view that the financial services sector is underdeveloped to play its role of intermediation. More so, African banks have low outreach with banks enjoying high interest rate spread and targeting short term finance at the expense of long term finance for investment. Sandrine, (2010) argue that the intermediation ratio of SSA banks is small than in other developing countries indicating that in Africa, the bank has difficulty in ensuring that collected deposits are given as loans to the private sector for investment. Further, the study shows that banks in SSA offer loans to clients with good capacity for repayment especially big foreign companies or domestic public ones while local small and medium enterprises are often not taken into consideration. Menyah and Allen (2011) indicate that F International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) |Volume III, Issue X, October 2019|ISSN 2454 6186 www.rsisinternational.org Page 186 financial systems in SSA are not well developed despite its importance in supporting sustainable and balanced growth. Such a developed financial sector enhances the availability of funding by mobilizing idle savings, facilitates the transaction and attracting foreign investment. The extant literature available indicates SSA has variations in financial development. II. SPECIFICATION OF THE ECONOMETRIC MODELSTATIC AND DYNAMIC STATES The specification of the econometric model isbased on econometric theory and on any information relating to the phenomenon being stated. In this study, this model explains the independent, dependent and moderating variable. 2) (Model 5 4 3 2 1 0 it it it it it it it it c FDI INFL FINAC RMT GDP FD Where: it FD Financial development which is dependent variable; 0 Intercepts and is assumed to remain constant across all the units according to Cameron and Trivedi (2005) it RMT Remittances; it FINAC Financial access; it INFL Inflation; it FDI Foreign direct investment; it INTR Interest rate; it c individual specific effect and 1 it GDP Lagged value of GDP, it Stochastic error term and is assumed to be uncorrelated with all explanatory variables of all past, present and future time periods. This is a strong assumption which rules out lagged dependent variables. It also assumes that the idiosyncratic error term is uncorrelated with the individual specific effect it c 5 1 Slope parameters estimated by regression

title: Why Tanzania Withdrawn Its Membership from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Comesa?
abstract: The study has focused on analyzing the major factors influencing Tanzania to withdraw its membership form the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) in 2000. COMESA is the region economic integration where Tanzania joined in 1994 with the expectation of gaining more benefits through trade relations that existed between the member states. The article explains how the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa failed to meet the required targets to some of its member states particularly Tanzania and leading to withdraw its membership. The expectations of Tanzania to promote trade relations and improving exportations alongside with developing domestic industries and small and medium enterprises seemed to fail. The economic gap between Tanzania and other member states was increasing day to day to the extent in 1990's Tanzania was among of the poorest countries in the world. The efforts were taken to revive the economy, and one of the approaches taken was to withdraw from one of the regional economic integration that was COMESA. The findings show that zero tariff reduction agreement was the major influence of Tanzania to withdraw its membership from COMESA. Reducing tariffs to 100% was a threat for Tanzania because according to trade policy review of 2000 shows that Tanzania was heavily relying on revenues from trade tariffs and VAT. Therefore, if Tanzania would remain in COMESA and implementing zero tariff reduction could more affect its revenue collection. According to East African trade review, implementation of the new tariff regime would cost the government a total of US$80 million annually and also would affect the domestic industries due to unable to sustain the competitiveness of the market for imported goods from other member countries.According to Hon. Benjamin Mkapa (1999) the former President of the United Republic of Tanzanian President, the large part of Tanzania revenue was depending on tariffs charges from foreign goods particularly from neighboring land locked countries such as DRC, Zambia, Malawi, Burundi and Rwanda that have been using Tanzania as transit to import and export their goods through Dar es Salaam, Mtwara and Tanga ports and transporting to their countries. The products were usually imposed trade tariffs through customs border agents and forming necessary source of revenue to Tanzania. According to him, if Tanzania would agree to remove all trade barriers to zero tariffs would harm its revenue collection and leading economic instability.  COMESA; Tanzania; regional integration; tariffs; DOI 10.7176/IAGS/69 03

title: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE BENEFITS OF REGIONAL INTEGRATION FROM COMESA FOR ZAMBIA
abstract: The world at large in the last three to four decades has shown greater impetus for regionalism, from Europe's EU, South America's MERCOSUR, Southeast Asia's ASEAN, North America's NAFTA and Africa's numerous RECs among which eight are recognized as building blocks for the now AfCFTA among others. While for other parts of the world, the driving force to regionalism may be different, for Africa, Pan Africanism and African Renaissance have been the push forces behind regionalism. This study therefore took interest to look at the benefits of belonging to a REC, with the ultimate objective of empirically investigating the benefits of COMESA's integration for Zambia's growth for the period 1975 2017.  Using a variable that represented the presence of integration and time series data, the ordinary least squares (OLS) technique was estimated to establish significance and relevance of integration on growth.  The findings among others revealed that the variable representing integration had no significant effect on long run GDP growth, FDI and trade. However, it did have a significant effect on investment. On the other hand, the findings of the analysis of COMESA programmes being implemented in Zambia revealed that Zambia largely benefits from COMESA, citing among others the infrastructure development of four of the five border posts shared by Zambia and its neighbours. Contributions to theory, policy and practice: The study recommends that Zambia and indeed all COMESA Member States refrain from the use of Non Tariff Barriers (NTBs) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBTs) Additionally, Safeguard Measures must be sought for countries seeking to protect their infant domestic industries and adherence to the NTBs and TBTs resolution framework under COMESA. These if unchecked have a potential of undermining the benefits Member States can obtain from COMESA integration.

title: The spatial effects of neighbors on the trading activities of COMESA countries
abstract: Obtaining accurate geospatial information provides researchers with various means through which they can examine the effects of the interactions of economic observations on the trading activities of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) countries. With the aim of examining the process by which the interaction of spatial and economic observations affects the trading of COMESA, this article describes the spatial panel models for the trading activities of COMESA countries and chooses between spatial fixed or random effects by using the robust Hausman test. Results indicated that the spatial Durbin model with fixed effects specification should be tested and considered in most cases of this study. After that, the direct and indirect effects among COMESA regions were assessed, and the role of indirect spatial effects in estimating imports and exports was empirically demonstrated. Regarding originality and research value, and to the best of the authors' knowledge, this article is the first participation that can draw a comprehensive picture of COMESA regional trade; however, we take the idea of spatial dependence through spatial panel models using XSMLE, which is a new command for spatial analysis using STATA. The results confirm that there are variables that have direct and indirect effects on the COMESA trade.Obtaining accurate geospatial information provides researchers with various means through which they can examine the effects of the interactions of economic observations on the trading activities of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) countries. With the aim of examining the process by which the interaction of spatial and economic observations affects the trading of COMESA, this article describes the spatial panel models for the trading activities of COMESA countries and chooses between spatial fixed or random effects by using the robust Hausman test. Results indicated that the spatial Durbin model with fixed effects specification should be tested and considered in most cases of this study. After that, the direct and indirect effects among COMESA regions were assessed, and the role of indirect spatial effects in estimating imports and exports was empirically demonstrated. Regarding originality and research value, and to the best of the authors' knowledge, this article is the first p.

title: The Implications of Non tariff Barriers to Trade on COMESA Free Trade Area: The Case of Zimbabwe and Zambia
abstract: This research sought to explore the implications of Non Tariff Barriers (NTBs) to trade on the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Free Trade Area (FTA) If the COMESA free trade area is appropriately dealt with, COMESA members and trade stakeholders will get information that is important in their attempt to attain the goal of eliminating trade impediments within the region. This will promote regional economic integration and enhance growth through increased investment levels; scaled up exchange of goods and services; and enhanced socio economic cooperation. Such cooperation will directly contribute to the improved political and trade relations. The research adopted a case study design in which various cases were examined to understand issues surrounding the implications of NTBs on COMESA free trade area. A qualitative research methodology was also utilised while data was collected through key informant interviews and document analysis. The research concluded that NTBs in COMESA FTA are used on health issues as well as to protect the infant industries in the region. The research therefore recommended that COMESA members find a working definition of what constitute an infant industry for the purpose of applying for derogation; and also that they make use of bilateral trade agreements to eliminate existing NTBs where States clearly indicated their objectives of removing all NTBs that inhibit trade between them.

title: COMESA: Prospects and Challenges for Regional Trade Integration
abstract: The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) was established with a view to achieve sustainable development through progressive realization of integration, begin with preferential trade area then becoming a common market and finally transforming into economic community. In COMESA, member states have been obligated to establish a customs union, abolish all non tariff barriers, and determine a common external tariff and follow common standards of custom procedures. Among those commitments, FTA is established to facilitate regional integration through zero customs tariffs on goods traded among the Member States. The study has found that, less diversity in trade, overlapped memberships, heterogeneity of the economy, loss of import export tax revenue, lack of political commitment, loss of national sovereignty, poor private sector participation, and poor infrastructure were identified as challenge to achieve the objective of COMESA. Therefore, states needs to take affirmative action's including harmonizing their national trade policies in the manner of pre portrayed goal of COMESA FTA arrangement. In doing so, it needs to venture the expected challenges of membership to COMESA FTA and potential gains from trade liberalization.  COMESA, Regional Integration, Free Trade Area DOI 10.7176/IAGS/76 02 Publication date :September 30 th 2019

title: The potential of African trade integration Panel data evidence for the COMESA EAC SADC Tripartite
abstract: The COMESA EAC SADC Tripartite FTA, formed in 2011, is supposed to be a milestone towards Africa's continental trade integration. This study analyzes the impact of regional integration among the Tripartite countries on their bilateral imports before that date to evaluate the latest integration efforts. We estimate an extended gravity model on a large panel of 51 African countries using yearly observations from 1995 to 2010. We proxy existing formal trade barriers by sample average tariff data on imports from the world as well as indicator variables for the membership in regional FTAs. We consider different estimation techniques and discuss distinct sets of fixed effects. The PPML regression results indicate that remaining tariffs are significantly negatively correlated with imports throughout the preferred multiplicative models. An FTA status does not show a clear cut import enhancing effect. In the specifications that control for country year effects, the EAC coefficient is positively correlated with imports, and the COMESA and SADC FTA membership show a positive relation to imports within some reduced sample robustness checks.

title: Egypt and COMESA 4940
abstract: The study sought to answer some of the inquiries relating to the role of the African Union to the Economic Development of the continent with taking Egypt and The COMESA countries as a model. The study came to a set of results, the most important of which is that what the African continent needs is a solution to its Economic problems, as the Continent has wealth that helps in the Economic integration but not exploited. Thus the African States became unable to achieve a degree of cooperation that supports Economic relations, as well as to the problem suffered by the Organization of African Unity will be suffered by the Union; hence, it is a must to reconsider the system of Economic groupings within the Continent like COMESA and other, leading to the creation of linkages between the Economic interests of The States of those groupings on the basis of complementarity bring added value to the grouping as well as to facilitate joint projects that brings benefit from the resources and wealth of those States, on condition that it is under a cultural umbrella reaffirms images of the peoples in those countries, creating a new vision based on the many common space areas, which means creating positive opportunities for members of the continent that can be achieved through which Developmental renaissance.

title: An econometric estimation of the aggregate import demand function for Comesa with in depth analysis of Regional Trade Integration
abstract: This paper investigates the behaviour of aggregate import demand for COMESA using times series data for the period 1970 2006. The newly developed bounds testing approach, an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) modeling process is employed to capture the effect of gross domestic product, unit value of import prices, prices of domestically produced goods, foreign exchange reserves and import liberalization on aggregate import demand. The estimation of an error correction model enables the separation of the shortand long run elements of this relationship. The results suggest that there exists a unique cointegrating relationship between aggregate import demand and its determinants. In the long run, gross domestic product, prices of domestically produced goods, unit value of import prices, and Import liberalization are the major determinant of COMESA"s aggregate imports demand. The short run dynamics suggest that gross domestic product have the highest influence on aggregate import demand in COMESA. The price of domestically produced goods is also found to be a strong determinant of imports in thelong term but insignificant in the short term. Unit value of import prices in the long and short run move contemporaneously in an almost one for one fashion. Foreign exchange reserves is positive however insignificant in both the long and short runs. Import liberalization is found to have an impact on aggregate import demand. Furthermore, the estimated error correction coefficient of 0.65635 suggests that the aggregated import demand corrects from the previous period"s disequilibrium by 66% per year. That is, it takes one year to fully realign any disequilibrium that occurs. This study provides the only assessment of COMESA aggregate import demand including a precise estimate for the short run relationship, especially an estimate of the short run adjustment term. This information will provide further input to support policy decisions relating to the management of the trade balance or policy in correcting COMESA's trade deficits and promoting intra regional trade.

title: The Effects of Regional Economic Communities on Industrialization: The Case of COMESA