ABSTRACT
Accordingly, our chapter examines the potential for South-South trade by focusing our analysis on the case of Senegal in the WAEMU. More specifically, we seek whether Senegal’s participation in the WAEMU might improve its external trade and eventually allow expansion of South-South trade in the subregion. To do this, we start by examining the country’s recent trade flows and participation in RTAs. We then compare international specialization of the WAEMU members by calculating three trade indicators: the Balassa’s Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index, a Contribution to the Trade Balance (CTB) index, and a relative trade balance index describing the position (POS) of individual countries on world markets. Finally, the magnitude of competition among WAEMU members is assessed with the help of a calculation of export similarity indices. The rest of the chapter is organized as follows: Section 14.2 presents an overall description of Senegal’s trade sector in comparison to other countries in the sub-region. Section 14.3 analyzes its international specialization quantitatively by using trade indicators. Section 14.4 concludes and summarizes our main results.
