By Alpha Abu
The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr. Hinga Sandy says the effects of Covid19 on global trade and the corresponding shocks felt by the business community in Sierra Leone are huge.
Addressing journalists in Freetown, Dr. Sandy said the restrictions on the movement of goods and people across the world had had a negative impact on importers in the country, saying “the work they are doing has been immensely challenging over this period”.
He spoke about the on-going challenges with the Logistics Chain and cited the increase in sea-cargo container freight charges for a 40-ft container from China that is now being billed from $7,000 to $8,000, as a result of the prevalence of the virus.
Before the outbreak, freight charges for such a container ranged between 2,500 and $3,000. The Minister explained the present low productivity globally and the shutting down of economies the world over.
He pointed out that there had been an increase in the consumption of petroleum products and an increase in price globally. The Minister said: “Because of all of these impacts you saw us drop the price of petroleum products from Le 9,000 to Le 8,500 and then to Le 7,000; but now the trend is the reverse and we’re looking at the global flat prices and to see what impact that is going to have on the local pump prices of petroleum products”.
His statement hints at the likelihood for an increase in the pump price of petroleum products in February.
He said “luckily” they had been able to do a number of agreements with some industries in the local production of certain goods and highlighted the presence of two major vegetable oil producing companies which has led to the availability and stability in the price of the oil.
The minister also spoke about the availability of flour and its relatively stable price after his ministry activated an agreement with the local flour mill company following the closure of Guinea’s land border with Sierra Leone that disrupted the supply agreement they had with a company that was bringing in the product from that country. He stated Liberia was presently getting flour from Sierra Leone and that the price of bread in Liberia had risen unlike here where it had been stable.
On another note, the Minister explained about the ongoing review of the Industrial Policy that is focused on increasing local production for which they were able to source funding from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. In that vein, he said, they had been able to negotiate “two huge marketing opportunities” under the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme and the Continental Free Trade Agreement. To ease the process of doing business, Dr. Sandy stated his Ministry was reviewing policies and legislation for which funds had already been secured from the World Bank under the Economic Diversification Project.
He added that it would create the enabling environment for businesses to thrive in the country.
On attracting foreign direct investment, he disclosed the coming into the country of a company to do recycling of scrap metals into metal rods whilst another firm was interested in doing value addition by extracting iron from the locally mined ore.
Dr. Sandy said that a couple of other agreements were being negotiated with foreign interests in investing in Sierra Leone. He said a policy on Agro- Processing has already been developed and the country would soon begin to produce its agricultural produce.
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