Kenya complied with the request by the East African Community’s secretariat to the five-member states to provide data on international trade and tax, the state statistician has said.
The information will partly help establish the impact the Economic Partnership Agreement will have on the EAC bloc, a win for Tanzania which has been pushing for this before it ratifies the long-standing deal.
In a January 13 letter to the region’s ministries responsible for EAC Affairs, the secretariat asked the five countries to provide data with description of products they are trading in, value of the imports, source of the products (exporting country) and the tax rates.
“(The EAC)…requests you to liaise with your respective revenue authorities, bureau of statistics to urgently provide the EAC secretariat with the trade input data for 2006-2015 by January 18, 2017,” the letter, signed by deputy secretary general for finance and administration Jesca Eriyo, read in part.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics said it submitted the data as per the request of the secretariat despite the short notice.
“Kenya has done its part. We did that because the data is available. The secretariat is now going to analyse the data. Our work was to give the data which we have done,” KNBS director general Zachary Mwangi said.
It is not clear whether Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi have submitted their data to help conclude a report on the dragging EAC-EU duty and quota-free deal, which is likely to further delay.
The trade deal stalled last year after Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi failed to sign.

Among them is Tanzania which has declined to sign the pact twice – in 2014 and 2016 – saying it will hurt the growth of her industries.
Kenya and Rwanda have signed and ratified the EPA deal securing duty and quota-free market access for their exports to the EU.
“We are having a meeting at the secretariat next week where we will also get feedback from the other partner states on where they are with the process. We don’t have a report whether the submissions have been done,” Mwangi said.
A special committee on trade facilitation and integration is scheduled to sit between January 30 and February 3, to finalise the process before heads of states meet.
If the deal is not signed, it will expose Kenya to taxes of between five and 22 per cent on its exports to Europe.
Manufacturers have joined exporters to lobby the government to have the EPA agreement in place to safeguard the industries.
Source: The Star

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of TradeMark Africa.