Road transport is today a key economic sector in the five member states of the East African Community (EAC) providing essential services for exporters and importers engaged in international and regional trade in the respective countries. This study looks at the transport sector of the EAC and how it affects the economic growth of the region.

This report outlines the progress in implementation of TradeMark Africa and its partners for the fifth quarter of 2012/2013

The first quarter of 2012 saw continued good progress across the TradeMark Africa programme. One area of particular progress was in facilitating stronger linkages and exchange between TradeMark Africa and its partners, and between TradeMark Africa partners.

The East African Community (EAC) has made decisive advances in the elimination of non-tariff barriers (NTBs)

The objective of this report is to carry out an evaluation of the impact of the CU and the potential benefits that the implementation of the CM may bring. The focus is on both types of integration, shallow and deep integration. The report starts by tracking the evolution of tariffs and trade flows in the run-up to the CU so as to describe how patterns of specialization have evolved in the region. This is done at a very detailed level of aggregation, the HS-6 digits product level, for the period 2000-2010. Then, in order to look at what the process of deeper integration, or the implementation of the CM, may bring, issues of intra-industry trade and similarity of export structures are analysed, both at the sector and product level.

Improving the quality of life of the people of East Africa is at the heart of the regional integration process. The State of East Africa Report 2013 emanates from the following three elements of the objectives, fundamental and operational principles in the Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community.

Over the past 8 years the 5 members of the East African Community (EAC)— Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda—have continued to take steps to make it easier for local firms to start up and operate. Driving these efforts has been a recognition that regional integration alone is not enough to spur growth. The EAC needs an investment climate—including a business regulatory environment—that is well suited to scaling up trade and investment and can act as a catalyst to modernize the regional economy. Improving the investment climate in the EAC is therefore an essential ingredient for successful integration—the foundation for expanding business activity, boosting competitiveness, spurring growth and, ultimately, supporting human development.

Mechanisms are in place to report non-tariff barriers (NTBs)

Recent discoveries of oil and gas by Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda raise issues for the proposed EAC monetary union, not least for the other two countries, Burundi and Rwanda. Two issues need to be considered: the risk that oil and gas revenues may be mis-spent and contribute to a weakening of institutions—the ―curse of oil‖—and the likelihood that the two groups of countries will become more dissimilar and hence that a single monetary policy would not be suitable to both.