Trademark East Africa’s support for the modernization of ports in Mombasa and Dar-es-Salaam, and its one-stop border posts, are transforming trade and driving integration across East Africa. And the UK in Kenya and Tanzania plays an important role in supporting them, through UK aid.
The time it takes to move goods from Mombasa to Kampala has been halved to 6 days and a container now moves through the port of Mombasa in less than 4 days – down from 15 days a few years ago. This has led to the reduction of freight and transport costs, increased competitiveness of goods exported by East African countries, and led to job creation.
Trademark East Africa (TMA) was founded by the UK in 2009 with the aim of growing prosperity in East Africa through trade. Funded by UK aid and other development partners, TMA’s flagship project in Kenya is the modernization of the Mombasa Port—Kenya’s biggest port which serves more than 200 million people in East Africa.
UK aid is increasing its support to TMA (£95m over the next 4 years) to increase Kenya’s trade by £1.3b. This will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs every year (with an aim of 700,000 by 2020), stimulate further growth and generate an additional $1.2b in revenue for Kenya. Increasing trade will boost local economic growth, as well as open up markets for British investors and deliver value for money for UK taxpayers.
The UK’s new support will improve trade infrastructure at Mombasa, Kenya’s biggest port, serving more than 200 million people in East Africa  – Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania – building viable roads and expanding docking points for ships to increase the efficiency of goods moving between countries.
With the UK’s help East Africa continues to build its port and transport infrastructure, the engine room of trade for a booming continent.
 
Source: Foreign and common wealth

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.