Effective Regional Integration Research Articles

Towards a harmonised eac tax sysyem: curent status, challenges and way forward*

Under Article 79 of the EAC Treaty, the Partner States have under- taken to harmonize and rationalize investment incentives to promote the Community as a single investment area while avoiding double taxation. Article 83 of the same Treaty states that the Partner States have committed themselves to adjust their tax policies to eliminate tax distortions. These provisions show the extent to which the EAC Partner States are willing to advance with tax integration as part of comprehensive regional integration. This approach is welcomed, as scholars generally agree that full regional integration cannot be achieved with- out tax integration. In this sense, tax harmonization is seen as a sure path to tax integration, a driver for effective regional integration. It is unfortunate, however, that tax harmonization in the EAC faces several challenges. Some causes of the challenges are legal, such as differences in legal systems, while others are geopolitically motivated. This paper discusses where the EAC currently stands in relation to tax harmonization. Starting with a theoretical framework, the paper focuses on the current practical aspects of tax harmonization in the EAC. The paper, therefore, highlights the existing discrepancies alongside the challenges in building a harmonized tax system in the EAC. The pa- per identifies three ways out de jure harmonization through traditional law-making by the legislature, de facto harmonization through judicial law-making processes, and tax coordination where tax harmonization does not work.

A Common Threat Analysis of Intergovernmental Policy Convergence in the Framework of Regional Integration: A Case Study of the ASEAN Strategic Partnership “Our Eyes”

Since 2016, there has been a significant increase in the incidence of terrorist attacks in several ASEAN Member State (AMS). In response, Indonesia initiated the formation of an intelligence information exchange cooperation namely Our Eyes Initiative (OEI) to several AMS and communicated that the transnational terrorist network is a common threat. Some are optimistic, this cooperation will result an effective regional integration, while others are skeptical that the condition of the region is still tinged with economic, defence competition and super power states dominance such as China and America so that it affects the cooperation. This study aims to analyze how transnational terrorism encourages AMS to use the transnational communication mechanism from Holzinger and Knill in the OEI cooperation. This research is a part of International Relations studies so that researchers make the traditional realist/neorealist paradigm as a basis ini explaining regional conditions. The study use qualitative explanative method. Data collection were obtained through secondary sources and analyzed by meanss of data comparison, verification and conclusion drawing. So far, the cross-national convergence study has come to the finding that convergence among countries is present due to the influence of regional institution so as to create policy product adopted by each state. However, the authors argue that in the OEI case study is firstly influenced by a common threat so that the state responds and creates a transnational communication mechanism.

The African Union Continental Free Trade Area: Challenges and Prospects

One of the bitter legacies of colonialism in Africa is the creation of small unit states which reduced the singular and collective competitiveness of the states and the continent respectively in global economic and political affairs. It has therefore been the resolve of African leaders to pursue some forms regional integration in order to overcome the challenges. Consequently, from the pre-independence pan-Africanist philosophy, to the Organization of African Unity, OAU and today the African Union, this fundamental goal of building integration mechanisms has remained prevalent at the regional and sub-regional levels, leading to the desire to establish integration schemes for customs’ union, economic community, common currency, central bank and one parliament, and most currently that of the Free Trade Area in the Continent. This article sought to unpack some of the challenges of regional integration in general and those facing the AU’s continent-wide Free Trade Area and found that, though efforts towards regional integration in Africa have recorded some achievements including positive economic growth, they still fall short of achieving most of its laudable objectives especially in the face of such challenges ranging from over-ambitious targets, to the heterogeneity of the economies of members, among others. For effective regional integration in Africa, AU should basically resolve the identified knotty challenges that have frustrated a possible beneficial intra-regional trade which could subsequently lead to regional integration in Africa without which the drive for collective self-reliant development for Africa will always turn into a mirage, deepening the region’s dependence on the western powers.

Rhetoric and realities of regional integration: Botswana SME perspectives on Southern African trade

Despite political pronouncements about facilitating development through economic integration of geographic regions in Africa, intra-regional trade remains limited and unbalanced. While tariff barriers have declined within Southern Africa, non-tariff trade barriers to export-import growth persist, impacting on the smaller economies. Utilising interviews with small-to-medium enterprises in land-locked Botswana, this study generated in-depth qualitative data on their experience of barriers to trading regionally. The research found that administrative procedures at the national level, ambiguity of implementation at borders and constraints on logistics constitute their most daunting impediments. Among the key imperatives then for effective regional integration and economic growth among developing countries in Africa and elsewhere are standards harmonization, regulatory streamlining, process transparency and improvement of infrastructure.

From global goals to regional strategies: towards an African approach to SDGs

Starting from a stock-taking of the millennium development goals, the paper emphasizes the need to pay greater attention to Africa’s regional dimension in the context of the post-2015 development agenda. Three main arguments are elaborated in this respect. First, translating the sustainable development goals (SDGs) into regional development strategies can enhance the link between global objectives and the multifaceted reality of a multi-polar world, enhancing policy coherence, and providing a strategic option to strengthen Africa’s bargaining power vis-à-vis both developed and emerging partners. Secondly, a regional approach to SDGs can facilitate the definition of relevant targets/indicators and enhance the monitoring and evaluation framework. In so doing it could also offer the scope to integrate more closely SDGs’ social and environmental concerns into existing development frameworks. Thirdly, focusing just on the economic sphere – the area where Africa’s integration is relatively more advanced – increasing evidence suggests that effective regional integration can support the continent’s transformation agenda and foster more inclusive and sustainable growth.

LEGAL INTEGRATION AS A MEANS TO REGIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION: A SOUTHERN AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE

It is a general truth that regional integration has been considered as a means to achieve rapid economic growth and alleviate other socio economic ills faced in Southern Africa. In Southern Africa a lot of information has been expounded from an economist and political perspective on how regional integration cane be achieved. However not much emphasis has been placed on the role of the law in realising regional integration. This paper seeks to define the concept of regional integration and legal integration in International law considering the two concepts deal with interstate relations. Undoubtedly the most successful economic integration process has been fulfilled by the European Continent. In trying to ascertain if legal integration can be a means to achieve regional integration, the European Economic Community (EEC) will be examined. The role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will be discussed along with the landmark cases which set the law as the precursor to Europe’s successful integration process. A continental shift will be made to assess if the African Union (AU) considers the law as a means to effective regional integration. Moving further inward in the African continent, this paper will examine the position of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA), and if the law is being used as a means to effective regional integration? Lastly recommendations will be made pertaining to the African scenario and particularly in Southern Africa thus leading to the conclusion. The research methods used for this paper will be a comparative analysis with the European Integration process, literature review and internet research.

Szinergiakeltés vagy látszatcselekvés? Az afrikai regionális integrációk problémái

A regionális integrációk a gazdasági/társadalmi fejlődést elősegítő szinergiákat képesek kelteni a pozitív impulzusok komplexumával. Erre a dinamizáló erőre a legszegényebb kontinensen, Afrikában lenne a legnagyobb szükség. Azonban az életképes, hatékony regionális integrációk létrejöttét és főként működését számos tényező nehezíti. Ilyenek az országcsoportokon belüli drasztikus fejlettségbeli különbségek (amelyeket a legerősebb „vezér” tagállamok – például Dél-Afrika, Nigéria – önző módon kihasználnak), a tagországok közötti konfliktusok, az intrakontinentális nemzetközi kereskedelem jelentéktelensége, a közlekedési infrastruktúra anakronisztikus állapota, valamint a feleslegesen sok regionális integráció közötti igen gyakori részleges (esetenként teljes) területi átfedés. A felsorolt és egyéb körülmények miatt Afrikában óvakodni kellene az európai viszonyokra kidolgozott integrációs modellek másolásától, és a helyi sajátosságokat figyelembe vevő módosításokra lenne szükség.

Un área de libre comercio del Pacífico

The Pacific is one of the two main centers of world trade and in this sense it is located next to Western Europe. A Pacific Free Trade Area, comprising the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, would appear to have the necessary conditions for effective regional integration. The expanded Pacific area could be the broadest world trade center if there were closer cooperation for business expansion and economic development within the area. It is, however, very difficult to suddenly establish such a free trade area in the world, despite the gigantic potential for development and commercial growth that such integration would bring.

New Regionalism in Africa: Waves of Integration

The international trading environment is shaped by the so-called ‘new regionalism’, an increasingly complex phenomenon with a rapid proliferation of Regional Integration Agreements (RIAs), overlapping memberships, deeper integration efforts and trade blocs signed between developing and industrialised countries. This article will address the following questions: What happened with African Trade Integration in the last 60 years? Has African regionalism been a failure? What factors led to some unfavourable developments? How has Africa been infl uenced by the phenomenon of new regionalism? What are the barriers to increased effective regional integration?

Pax Nigeriana and the Responsibility to Protect

AbstractThe essay traces the roots of R2P in African political thought—through individuals such as Kenya's Ali Mazrui, Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, Tanzania's Salim Ahmed Salim, South Africa's Nelson Mandela and abo Mbeki, and Egypt's Boutros Boutros-Ghali— and considers the bid by West Africa's regional hegemon, Nigeria, to play a leadership role on the continent in relation to the norm. It argues that the regional West African giant has exhibited a 'missionary zeal' in assuming the role of a benevolent 'older brother' responsible for protecting younger siblings—whether these are Nigeria's immediate neighbours, fellow Africans, or black people in the African Diaspora. Without Nigeria's military support and economic and political clout, the ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG)—which intervened in civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s—would simply not have existed. Despite the lack of a clearly agreed UN or pan-African mandate, Nigeria's interventions - under the auspices of ECOMOG - effectively operationalised R2P in the region and eventually won continental and international support. However, Nigeria's recent foreign adventures have often been launched in the face of strong domestic opposition and a failure by military and civilian regimes to apply R2P domestically. The essay concludes by considering Nigeria's need to build a stable democracy and promote effective regional integration, if it wishes to benefit from its peacekeeping successes in the region and pursue a continued leadership role in relation to R2P.

East Asian Visions: Perspectives on Economic Development

Asian Visions: Perspectives on Economic Development. Edited by Indermit Gill et al. Washington, D.C. and Singapore: World Bank and Institute of Policy Studies, 2007. Pp. 358. The volume contains eighteen policy studies authored by twenty senior policy-makers, statespersons and scholars who represent eight Asian countries. The studies focus on an array of themes and questions related to them. First, what factors explain Asia's growth and development, and will all of countries that have experienced success continue to do so as powerful impact of China either benefits them or crowds some of them out of markets and leaves them behind? Second, will forces of integration build stability and efficiencies or will some Asian economies be plagued with persistent inefficiencies and become both economically and politically vulnerable? Third, can Asian countries avoid domestic disintegration given growing public concerns about increasing inequities, persistent poverty, environmental pollution and degradation, and official and private sector corruption and cronyism? Fourth, will Asia find a new generation of leaders and willing followers who can set aside national myopia and internal differences in favour of more effective and widely supported view of regional cooperation and integration? The authors discuss a generally shared vision that answers to above will be yes but only following a great deal of hard work that eventually will lead to sound economic structures and practices throughout Asia, and they will be based upon effective regional integration and economic openness, able and corruption-free leaders and influence of China. With this in mind, opening chapter makes two telling points. The first is that growth of production sharing networks (featuring horizontal and vertical linkages among firms) has meant that East Asia's share of trade has increased from 10 per in 1970's to more than 25 per today. Intraregional trade ... has increased from 35 per to 55 per cent (p. 11). Even with rise of China, [w]ith such a wide range of factors at play, so no single country within Asia can dominate production chain, but with much of activity centered in China as assembly plant of world (p. 11). The second telling point is that finding effective change agents who will continue to lead this process both internally and externally is crucial. Effective leadership and management requires making the important transition from paternalistic top-down governance structure to a pluralistic and open market economy structure since no small elite can no longer manage large complex market economies (featuring production sharing networks) (p. 19). Leadership in some form or other is a central feature of book's many chapters because, according to some of contributors, leaders must also find ways to avoid domestic disintegration by dealing effectively within civil societies. Such societies flourish when market management is efficient and when public officials operate in absence of corruption, when they practise responsive decision-making, and when they do not tolerate polluted cities, impoverished rural and urban areas and excessive inequities. Ambassador Tommy Koh's essay makes point that corruption poses a massive challenge because it distorts economic decision-making. It leads to injustice. Corruption undermines of public institutions. Asian leaders and thinkers should be united in condemning and combating corruption (and) ... in increasing transparency, accountability and integrity (p. 143). Haruhiko Kuroda echoes Koh's points by declaring that avoidance of corruption is essential especially since primary obligation of leaders is to eliminate, or at least substantially reduce, poverty which remains single most urgent challenge for many Asian developing countries. …

Trade and regional integration: analysis of the effectiveness in the GCC

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of the GCC integration.Design/methodology/approachBoth descriptive and comparative analyses are used. In order to measure the effectiveness, indicators like trends of trade, FDI inflows, joint venture project activities and technology diffusion are considered.FindingsThe analyses revealed that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regularly reviews the collective process of all the proposals to be executed. It also conducts an in‐depth analysis of all issues concerning the GCC states and their societies. The analyses also showed increasing trends in exports and imports, and high‐tech manufacturing after implementing customs union. In the same fashion, the number of joint venture projects, total capital investment and capital investment per project increase dramatically after executing customs union. The analysis further shows that the investment in large‐scale joint venture projects increases during the same period. The paper finds a sharp increase in FDI during the period between 2001 and 2004; within this period, the customs union has been implemented. This increased FDI is mainly due to the fact that the GCC attains enlarged domestic market size and stable economic growth after the GCC integration. The GCC integration also contributes to improve the push and pull factors of FDI that have further attracted increased FDI. The paper shows that the GCC countries have adapted and deployed new technology considerably quickly during the period 1999 to 2005 compared with the 1990s.Practical implicationsThe study noticed improvements in all indicators as well as the push and pull factors that enhance effectiveness of the GCC integration. To attain more effective regional integration, a periodic review of all the issues concerning the GCC states and their societies in light of the advancement taking place in the Arab world and international arenas is vital.Originality/valueThe study finds that the effectiveness of the GCC integration is progressive. The integrators that measure effectiveness such as trends of trade, FDI inflows, joint venture project activities and technology diffusion show increasing trends.

Can South African business drive regional integration on the continent?

South Africa, the biggest investor in the rest of Africa, is a major force for change. But is it, and can it be, a driving force for more effective regional integration? This article looks at the issues.

Are the Arab Maghreb countries really integratable?

AbstractThe main objective of this study is to assess the extent of economic and financial integration among the countries in the Arab Maghreb region. Empirical results consistently suggest that three of these countries (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) do share a robust and meaningful relation binding together their macroeconomies, their financial markets, and their monetary policies, at least over the long‐term horizon. Therefore, the failure, thus far of these countries to achieve a genuine regional integration is likely caused by socio‐political factors rather than by economic or financial incompatibility. Of course, the presence of a potent long‐run relation among the three countries should motivate further efforts towards the creation of an effective regional integration. The results suggest that such efforts should start with improving the structure and the operation of the Arab Maghreb Union which, despite its current feeble status, has apparently strengthened economic and financial ties among countries in the region.

Strengthening regional financial cooperation

The severe international financial crises which rocked the Latin American economies in the 1980s and 1990s suggest that the international financial system suffers from serious defects. This article looks at one of the reforms which has been mooted in recent years: strengthening regional financial cooperation. It concludes that a Latin American fund made up of a modest portion of the reserves of the countries of the region, possibly backed up with contingency credits from the international banking system, could be an effective line of defense against financial crises caused by capital flight and could help to prevent the spread of crises within the region. A fund of this nature could also have other functions, such as providing finance to cope with balance of payments problems associated with temporary slumps in the terms of trade. It would also promote harmonization of the macroeconomic policies of its members, which is an essential condition for achieving more stable bilateral exchange rates and effective regional integration. Such a regional fund would not be a substitute for the International Monetary Fund, but would be complementary to it.