E-commerce Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements and what they mean for African MSMEs

The e-commerce negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) are taking place at a time when other members already have entered into Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) covering e-commerce. As of 19 July 2022, there are 193 RTAs with e-commerce chapters.[1] The most relevant RTAs with e-commerce chapters include the United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA),[2] the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (CPTPP),[3] and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)[4] and the European Union (EU)-United Kingdom (UK) Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).[5] The United States is the world's largest digital market,[6] while both CPTPP and RCEP Parties, combined are large economies,[7] with huge populations.[8] The UK and EU are big players in services trade and data flow, which is central to the digital economy. The regulatory agreements regarding the free flow of data and data protection between the EU and UK have a significant economic and social impact, affecting digital trade on a global scale, including in Africa, given that 11.5% of global cross-border data flows pass through the UK, of which 75% are with the EU.[9]

This chapter examines the e-commerce chapters of the four RTAs enumerated above with the aim of identifying the main provisions, and the spill-over effects of these RTAs on ongoing WTO e-commerce negotiations as well as on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) negotiations. Section 2 presents a brief typology of e-commerce regulation approaches shaping the RTAs, while section 3 highlights an overview of USMCA, TPP, RCEP, and TCA. Section 4 analyses the spillover effects of e-commerce provisions in RTAs on African Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs), while section 5 examines the effect of RTAs on e-commerce negotiations at the WTO and what they mean for African MSMEs. Section 6 provides a conclusion.