Senegal wt/tpr/S/223/sen page Annex 2 senegal contents

trade policy regime: framework and objectives

1. General

20. 
    In accordance with the Constitution adopted by referendum on 7 January 2001¹⁷, Senegal is a secular, democratic, social republic. The President of the Republic is Head of State; he is elected by direct universal suffrage for a seven‑year term of office¹⁸, renewable once. The President appoints the Prime Minister and, on the latter's proposal, the other members of the government. Executive power is exercised by the government. The Parliament, comprising the National Assembly and the Senate, exercises legislative power.¹⁹
    

1. 
   Ministers prepare drafts of legislation in their respective spheres of competence and submit them for approval to the Council of Ministers, chaired by the President of the Republic, before they are sent to the National Assembly for approval and then to the Senate, which has 20 days in which to amend them. However, the National Assembly has the last word, since in the event of disagreement or if the Senate fails to decide within the set time‑limit, the draft is sent back to the National Assembly for final decision. Outside parliamentary sessions, the Council of Ministers may adopt by order measures normally falling within the scope of an ordinary law, in accordance with the "enabling law" voted by Parliament. An order falls if it is not ratified by Parliament during the following session.²⁰ The President signs laws, orders and decrees, which are then published in the Official Journal.²¹
   
2. 
   Once ratified by the National Assembly²², international treaties or agreements take precedence over laws, subject to their application by the other party or parties in the case of each agreement or treaty. Thus supranational rules are at the summit of the hierarchy of law in Senegal, followed by the Constitution, laws, orders and decrees. Senegal's policy on trade in goods is mainly based on WAEMU acts.²³ The main Senegalese legal texts relating to trade are listed in Table II.1.
   

1. 
   Article 88 of the Constitution states that the judiciary is independent of the legislature and the executive. Justice is administered by the Constitutional Council, the Supreme Court, the Court of Audit and the other courts and tribunals. A sectoral justice programme (SJP) 2006‑2016 has been set in place with the help of the development partners in order to address the deficit in financial resources, infrastructures, equipment and human resources.²⁴ There has been an ombudsman since 1991 to protect individuals in their dealings with the administration and meet their concerns; since 1999 he has had wider powers to institute proceedings.²⁵ The Dakar arbitration, mediation and conciliation centre (CAMC)²⁶, created in 1998, plays a major part in resolving differences between economic operators, dealing with a score of cases each year, mainly in the building sector.²⁷
   
2. 
   Senegal has 14 administrative regions, each with three or four départements (subregions), divided in turn into arrondissements (districts). Despite an ostensible desire for decentralization, local authorities have little administrative responsibility and no fiscal or commercial powers, and usually function on the basis of the tax resources allocated to them (1.5 per cent of the overall budget in 2006).²⁸
   
3. 
   The Ministry of Trade, together with the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, is responsible for Senegal's trade policy. As such it represents the state at international meetings dealing with trade matters, including those of the WTO, WAEMU and ECOWAS. In the discharge of its responsibilities the Ministry of Trade is assisted by a National Committee on International Trade Negotiations (NCITN), set up in 2001.²⁹ The committee is chaired by the Minister of Trade and brings together representatives of the principal ministries and bodies working in the fields covered by the WTO, as well as representatives of the private sector and unions. The NCITN is responsible for defining Senegal's position in bilateral, plurilateral and multilateral trade talks and for compliance with the resulting obligations. The Council for Economic and Social Affairs (CESA) was abolished in 2008, to be replaced by the Economic and Social Council (ESC), which is not yet in place.
   
4. 
   The private sector plays an active part in defining Senegal's trade and investment policy through a range of bodies, in particular the NCITN, the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (CCIA) and the Presidential Council on Investment (PCI). Since its inception in 2002, the PCI's principal task has been to strengthen dialogue between the Government and investors in order to bring about a world‑class business environment (Section 2). The PCI is a high‑level body, being chaired by the Head of State and bringing together some thirty company directors (one third Senegalese investors, one third foreign investors settled in Senegal, and one third foreign investors not settled in Senegal). It meets once a year and held its last session on 17 November 2008.³⁰ The Agency for Investment and Major Works (APIX) provides its secretariat and follows up its recommendations.
   

1. Policy Objectives

   1. 
      The Government's policy on trade and investment fits into the more general framework of its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), adopted in October 2006 and covering the period 2006‑2010. PRSP II follows on from PRSP I, which covered the period 2003‑2005.³¹ PRSP II preserves the four thrusts of PRSP I, namely: faster growth and wealth creation; access to basic social services; social protection, prevention and management of risks and disasters; and good governance and decentralized, participative development. The state implements an interventionist policy on transport and energy infrastructures (Chapter IV(3) and (4)), pursuing a programme of macroeconomic stabilization and structural reforms backed by the International Monetary Fund (Chapter I).
      
   2. 
      The first thrust of the PRSP, faster growth and wealth creation, is given operational effect through the Accelerated Growth Strategy (AGS), the main aim of which is to achieve average annual growth of 7‑8 per cent, so as to enable Senegal to become an emergent country. The two central components of the AGS are: creation of a world‑class business environment, and promotion of growth‑inducing clusters (agriculture and agro‑industry; marine products and aquaculture; textiles‑clothing; information and communications technology (ICT) and teleservices; and tourism, culture industries and crafts). The creation of a world‑class business environment, a process piloted by the PCI (Section 1), has given Senegal fifth place in the global reforming country rankings (first in Africa), according to the criteria applied in the World Bank's 2009 Doing Business classification.³²
      
   3. 
      In trade matters, PRSP II incorporates the results of the Integrated Framework (IF) adopted by the Council of Ministers in April 2003.³³ The IF validated the Strategy for Development and Promotion of Senegalese Exports (STRADEX) adopted in 2001, which aims to speed up the process of integration into the international trading system through a technical assistance programme. In this context, the Ministry of Trade is seeking to intensify the regional integration process (WAEMU, ECOWAS and the African Union) and to strengthen the country's participation in the work of the WTO (joint report, Chapter II). The authorities state that, with regard to the domestic market, the aim of trade policy is to foster competition and ensure that the public are properly and regularly supplied with current consumer goods (Chapter III(4)(ii)).
      
2. 
   
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