Yaounde — CEMAC member states have called on the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) to provide technical support for a study to design a streamlined method of collecting data on informal cross-border trade in the sub-region. The request was made at a workshop to share information on the Guidebook for Data Collection on External and Intra-regional Trade within CEMAC, held recently in Douala, Cameroon at the initiative of the CEMAC Commission with support from the French Cooperation Mission.

Experts who attended the workshop outlined a number of country-level weaknesses related to data collection and usage of statistics related to external trade. These include: gaps in the use of information technology in certain customs offices, inadequacies in data analysis and dissemination, the lack of human resources in institutions specialsed in statistics and the absence of coordination across stakeholders involved in data production.

These issues were mapped with various recommendations for CEMAC member states, notably that they should: speed up the incorporation of the platfrom called SYDONIA in all customs offices and create and ensure the effective running of a committee on the validation of statistics on external trade.

As concerns the CEMAC Commission, experts at the workshop called for the creation of a mechanism to ensure the smooth functioning of what is known as the Harmonised System (in gathering trade data in the sub-region) and to scale up the collection and dissemination of data on international trade in services.

In a more general note, the experts called for the creation of a sub-regional committee charged with clearing data on inter-state trade balance - a committee which should sit twice a year with the particular view of resolving issues of the mismatch and late provision of data by stakeholders.