African international trade in the global value chain of lithium batteries
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African international trade in the global value chain of lithium batteries Fernando Moreno-Brieva 1,2
& Carlos Merino
2
Received: 17 October 2019 / Accepted: 6 January 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract
The global value chain of lithium batteries (GVCLB) is revolutionizing different industries in the world, such as computers and vehicles, since their batteries allow the energy storage produced from various sources of electricity, renewable and conventional, online with the approaches to sustainable development and even the circular economy, highlighting that the first type is ideal for use in rural areas, as a social value, when there is no power grid. Within this global context, studies in Africa on this subject are scarce, in spite of this continent has a series of climatic characteristics, which allow the use of lithium batteries to improve the quality of life of a large percentage of its population. For this reason, the objective of this research is to analyze the degree of participation of Africa in the different components of this chain, focusing on the international trade of lithium batteries, the decomposition of comparative advantages, trade flows, and the balances of countries. Our findings show a low level of international trade in African countries within the GVCLB, except in Tunisia and South Africa, which depend heavily on imports of lithium batteries in relation to the world, especially from China and Japan. As for the commercial flows of these products within the continent, South Africa is the indisputable leader in Africa, because it exports lithium batteries to the highest number of countries. Keywords Africa . International trade . Global value chain . Competitiveness . Lithium JEL F15 . F18 . F63
* Fernando Moreno-Brieva [email protected] Carlos Merino [email protected]
1
Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Finca Más Ferré, edif. A. Campus de Somosaguas, 28223 Madrid, Spain
2
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Calle Francisco Tomás y Valiente 5, Madrid, Spain
Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change
1 Introduction The theme of global value chains, recognized by the complexity of the systems that involve them in a globalized world (Gereffi 1995, 2014), is based on outsourcing and offshoring, since its first studies, in the mid-1980s of the twentieth century. At the same time, in general terms, it has involved emerging countries from different perspectives, such as governance, knowledge, trade, and institutionalism. One of the topics that have been observed—including African economies—is that these types of countries tend to limit themselves to repetitive activities, with low value-added, in which technology generation and research and development are scarce (Mudambi 2008). On the other hand, one of the most critical topics in the century of renewable energy is its storage (Ma et al. 2015), which is necessary for the use of equipment that must be moved daily, such as electric cars, laptops, and cell phones (Sun et al. 2017). In this line, lithium—a metal found in al
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