Designing Trade Policy Options for Export Diversification

After several unsuccessful attempts at diversifying exports since the 1990s, Mali, Chad, Niger and Guinea-so-called MCNG countries-have deepened their dependence on natural resource commodities, mostly minerals. Structural challenges have prevented these countries to diversify exports. This book explores alternative growth pattern scenarios, the possible reorientation needed toward specific tradable/non-tradable sectors, the minimum requirements in terms of productivity growth and factor accumulation for achieving these alternative growth scenarios, as well as their trade-offs. The book identifies key constraints to diversification, exploring each countries' macro potential for developing new exports(especially agricultural products) and entering new markets abroad while undertaking a diagnostic of their insertion into global value chains.The book assesses whether their trade (and industrial) policies support or hamper diversification, and how they could be reoriented accordingly.The methodologies proposed benefitted from user-friendly macro modeling frameworks, enterprise surveys, trade and logistics diagnostic tools, product space analysis, gravity modeling.