Dar Es Salaam — AS the external Africa team comes to audit Tanzania's Africa Peer Review Mechanism Country Internal Assessment report, its latest output shows that the country has globally climbed two places up in trading across borders.

While it still faults an existing narrow tax base, it cites sectors with potential to expand the internal revenue collection as Mining and quarrying, contributing 2.6 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product growth rate, Trade and repairs 14.1per cent, Manufacturing 9.9 per cent and Construction 10.5 per cent.

It however raises concern that the country has gone down places in doing Business, Starting Business - down by 12 places, dealing with contract permit was down by 2 places, and registering property was down by one place.

Access to credit also went down by 5 places, Protecting Investors was down by 4 places while Trading across borders was the shinning point for the country having scaled up by 2 places from 105 to 103 out of 181 countries globally.

"Though Tanzania has adequate policies and strategies for promotion of international trade, the country remains a marginal player globally.

Prospects in regional integration, though, are promising," it states, giving a clear reference to the coming East Africa Common Market Protocol to be effected July 1.

It cites Tariff reduction as still remaining a key aspect of Regional Trading Arrangements, including Tanzania having implemented substantial trade reforms in the 1990s and first half of 2000s, resulting in substantial reduction in its tariff protection (more so for non agricultural products).

But it notes that there is ample room to gain from integration with respect to services and further reduction in non tariff measures. Before the East African Community (EAC) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) protocols were signed in year 2000,

Tanzania had made considerable gradual tariff simplification from 18 levels with rates ranging from 0 to 200 per cent in the mid 1980s to seven ranging from 0 to 100 in 1988/89 and further to only four categories ranging from 0 to 25 per cent (0, 10, 15 and 25).

Even as the EastAfrica integration seems like further in sight, the APRM self assessment report states that macroeconomic convergence is necessary to promote regional integration and accelerate the entire process.

A challenge it quips in is that with respect to regional trade, there is unfavourable trade balance and multiple belonging to more than one integration scheme with each moving towards a customs union.