ECCAS’S INFRASTRUCTURE: A REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE industry is modernized, there will be no real economic benefit from further improvements to the quality of road corridors.

The slow effective velocity of freight in Central Africa can be explained in terms of numerous road blocks, lengthy administrative delays at ports and border crossings, and corruption. Corruption levels are found to be as high as in West Africa. The landlocked countries in Central Africa (Chad and the Central African Republic) experience by far the most costly and lengthiest export times. A 2009 USITC report found that trucks often took two weeks to cross the border between the Central African Republic and Cameroon, losing more time at the border than in transit. Importing goods took between 4 to 6 weeks on average, including 2 to 4 weeks at the port (Arvis, Raballand, and Marteau 2009).

The uncertainty associated with delays on the road and at ports—in addition to high administrative costs—translates into an economic drain. Operators and businesses need to hedge against unreliable service delivery either by increasing inventories or taking alternate transport routes, which are often extremely expensive. _The Economist_ reported in 2002 that a beer factory in Cameroon, for example, keeps 40 days of inventory to cope with poor road conditions, and a beer distributor stockpiles five months of inventory at the beginning of each rainy season. This creates additional business costs and reduces orders (USITC 2009).

The landlocked members of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) largely rely on Douala in Cameroon as a gateway to the sea. The landlocked Central African Republic and Chad use Douala as the main point of exit to the sea. Trade with the western Democratic Republic of Congo tends to go through Matadi. Pointe-Noire in the Republic of Congo could potentially play a greater role as a deepwater gateway to the sea for the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. But the neglect of surface transport corridors during these nations’ recent conflicts has prevented this from taking place. Exports from the southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo have traditionally used Durban as a gateway to the sea because of its proximity to the north-south corridor in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

A substantial share of regional corridors are unpaved and in poor condition. There are five major corridors in Central Africa (table 2.2).<sup>3</sup> In most cases, only around two-thirds of the total length is paved. The Central African Republic has paved just about the entirety of its sea corridors and keeps them in good condition. But much of the connecting routes in Cameroon and the Republic of Congo is unpaved and in poor condition. The same can be said of the Angolan portion of the Lobito corridor. These countries seem to be neglecting strategic hinterland routes that are critical to Chad, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. What is striking in each of these cases is that the problem seems to lie in the neglect of road quality by a coastal gateway country. The incentives for the coastal country to maintain hinterland road corridors do not appear to be strong, since the coastal countries’ own economies are typically concentrated along the coast.

Traffic volumes on ECCAS’s regional corridors are substantially lower than in other regions and make the case for paving questionable. The Douala to Ndjamena route is the only one recording a significant volume of traffic: above 300 vehicles per day over three-quarters of its length. In most other

> 3 The route between Matadi and Lubumbashi is not provided in table 2.4 due to data limitations.

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