The Africa regional integration index is designed to measure the extent to which each country in Africa is meeting its commitments under the various pan-African integration frameworks, such as Agenda 2063 and the Abuja Treaty.
The index, which is a joint project of the African Development Bank, the African Union Commission and the Economic Commission for Africa, covers the following dimensions: free movement of persons, trade integration, productive integration, regional interconnections and infrastructure, and macroeconomic policy convergence.
Headline Findings
Progress made in terms of openness of the Congo through free movement and its good infrastructural integration into ECCAS contrast with the fact that it is lagging behind in its productive and trade integration at the regional level. There must therefore be a strong emphasis on these areas.
- Third in ECCAS (score: 0.53).
- Best performing country in ECCAS is Cameroon (score: 0.66).
ECCAS
How Congo Ranks Within ECCAS
Compare Congo's Dimension Scores
Analysis of Congo's Performance Across Dimensions
Free movement of persons: For this aspect of the Africa regional integration index, countries are scored against two indicators: the proportion of protocols ratified on the free movement of persons in the regional economic communities and the number of African countries whose nationals are permitted to enter visa-free or with a visa on arrival. The Congo is a member of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and has ratified articles 4 and 10 of the Treaty and the protocol on the free movement of persons and the right of establishment. ECCAS has also issued cards and booklets for free movement as well as a special entry track at ports, airports and entry zones for the nationals of the community. The Congo therefore demonstrates good integration with respect to free movement. It is one of the countries which are fully implementing the provisions of the protocols and is ranked in third place. In addition, it allows about 50 per cent of the nationals of other African countries to enter visa-free or with a visa on arrival.
Trade integration: The Index takes into account several indicators, including average customs tariffs on intraregional economic community imports and imports and exports of goods within the regional economic community. Trade in services is not included in this index for lack of sufficient data on this type of trade in Africa. The Congo imposes customs tariffs of about 5 per cent on ECCAS members, which is inherently a good decision, but nonetheless necessitates some improvement in view of the advances made in relation to free movement described above. At the same time, the share of exports of the Congo in intra-regional economic community trade (27 per cent) and that of its imports (20 per cent) provide it with strong trade integration, given its average share of 24 per cent in intraregional trade. This puts the Congo in seventh place in the category of the best integrated countries in intra-African trade.
Productive integration: The Index takes into consideration the indicators of intraregional trade in goods and examines their complementarity and their nature. The country has a complementarity index of only 27 per cent, which is low in comparison with its share in intra-African trade and which does not facilitate its insertion into a regional value chain. Furthermore, there is a very low level of trade in intermediate goods (0.07 per cent for exports and 0.09 per cent for imports).
Infrastructure: The Congo is well provided with infrastructure in comparison with the other member countries of ECCAS.
- Free movement of persons: Ranked third in ECCAS: (score: 0.52).Sao Tome and Principe is the best performing country in ECCAS (score: 0.7).
- Trade integration: Ranked eighth in ECCAS (score: 0.33). Cameroon is the best performing country in ECCAS (score: 0.98).
- Productive integration: Ranked fifth in ECCAS (score: 0.24). Burundi is the best performing country in ECCAS (score: 0.84).
- Infrastructure: Ranked first in ECCAS (score: 0.69).
- Financial integration and convergence of macroeconomic policies: Ranked fifth in ECCAS (score: 0.87). Gabon is the best performing country in ECCAS (score: 1).