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Landlocked Africa not reaping oil boom
Garth Theunissen
Posted: Thu, 21 Dec 2006

[miningmx.com] -- THE current resources boom may have helped several resources-rich African countries reap fabulous windfalls by exporting their oil, gas, coal and iron ore to China in particular. Yet sadly, the continent's overall export performance remains dismal when examined over the long term.

The World Bank says that Africa's share of the world's export market has continuously fallen over the past six decades (see graph).

The irony is that Africa's resources wealth - and resources dependence - is probably the main reason why African countries have struggled to diversify their economies to take advantage of increasing international trade opportunities.

Click on image to enlarge

For example, sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world that has not exhibited an increasing share of non-oil exports over the past two decades.

Of course, the fact that 40% of Africans live in landlocked countries (compared with just 23% in Asia) that face transport costs twice as high as other developing regions doesn't exactly facilitate export competitiveness.