On a recent trip to Ethiopia, Britain’s new international development secretary Alok Sharma announced plans for a new commission to mobilise private sector investment for bankable infrastructure projects in developing countries. During his two-day visit, Sharma allocated £10m of infrastructure investments to East Africa’s fastest growing economy, Ethiopia. The funds were earmarked for clean energy and sustainable infrastructure projects in Ethiopian cities, the Department of International Development (DFID) said.As one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, Ethiopia has “huge potential for future trade with the UK,” DFID added. Commissioning infrastructure The new commission aims to mine the expertise of UK and international business leaders in order to scale up infrastructure development in Africa and other emerging economies, according to DFID. Deploying a team of experts with experience in infrastructure development in Africa and Asia will help mitigate the risks of infrastructure projects and make such ventures more attractive to foreign investors, especially those in the City of London, Sharma said. “The focus will be to help make investment in infrastructure in developing countries more attractive to businesses and investors,” the department said. African economies on the continent currently face a £140 billion annual infrastructure gap, which requires urgent private sector investment, the African Development Fund says. The Commission hopes to facilitate private equity support to build infrastructure projects and create better trading partners for Britain, Sharma said. This Commission will aim to turbo-charge investment in green, sustainable infrastructure, leading to more jobs, better access to basic services and opportunities for businesses, creating the UK’s...

In about two weeks-time the 39th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) begins in Dar es Salaam. President John Magufuli, who is currently the deputy chairperson of SADC, will take over the rotating leadership of the regional organization from his Namibian counterpart Hage Geingob at the Summit. The theme for this year’s meeting is on the focus of the past four SADC Summits that sought to advance industrial development and takes into account the need for sufficient infrastructure to support industrialisation and the need to engage the youth, who are no question the bulk of the SADC population and headache for those responsible to come up with way to absorb them efficiently in economic undertakings. I recognize contributors would love to have their voices head, from presentations that will look at encounters and prospects in financing infrastructure projects that are key in stimulating industrialization program to those who might contemplate on openings for developing regional value chains within SADC and their benefits in stimulating intratrading within the region et cetera. As I join other contributors I would like to re-examine industrial development in Tanzania and what would take to make it take off swiftly in the prevailing business environment that is increasingly becoming very competitive. To begin with, I would like to examine the possibilities requirements and nature of industrialisation suitable for SADC member states with a clear understanding of the nature and magnitude of Tanzania’s journey to middle income and the...

Botswana has promised to support Kenya’s bid for a non-permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council.Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi said his country would vote for Kenya to take up the seat between 2021 and 2022.“Kenya asked that we support its candidature for the opportunity to be voted into the Security Council of the United Nations on non-permanent basis, and we assure (you) that Botswana will vote for Kenya even before Kenya votes for itself,”  said President Masisi.“We trust you (Kenya) with our issues, stability and willingness to engage. We hope you reciprocate the favor,” he said.Masisi was speaking at State House during a joint press briefing with President Uhuru Kenyatta.The Botswana president is in the country for a three-day State visit in which the two countries have signed three agreements on air transport, trade and ICT.Three agreementsThe three agreements include one that shields traders from double taxation, a bilateral air service agreement and a Memorandum of Understanding on Information, Communication and Technology (ICT). The agreements were signed at the end of talks held between Presidents Uhuru Kenyatta and Masisi at State House, Nairobi and attended by Deputy President Dr William Ruto. Kenya has been lobbying for a non permanent UN Security Council seat which it has held twice in 1973-1974 and 1997-1998.Last week, Foreign Affairs PS Macharia Kamau met representatives from Latin America and Caribbean countries to lobby their support for Kenya’s 2012-2022 bid in elections expected in September during the 74th United Nations General Assembly.The UN Security Council has 15...

For long, Ugandan traders have been complaining that their certified products are required to go through another certification process when they get to Tanzania. This has been affecting the transaction of business smoothly, but that is no more. “According to the free trade agreement between East African Community (EAC) member states, once goods have been certified by the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), they are not supposed to go through any other certification process in another member state, however, most goods from Uganda have always been blocked in Tanzania and required to go through another process of certification,” said Godwin Muhwezi, the UNBS public relations officer. Muhwezi added that this has been happening because the Tanzania standards body was handling both food and drugs and they had a different structure from UNBS. By changing to the Tanzania Bureau of Standards, the UNBS Q-mark will now be recognised. They all have the same standards for products. “Once your goods have been certified here in Uganda, you will trade freely in all the EAC states. We are calling upon all business people to make sure that their goods are certified to be able to enjoy international trade,” noted Muhwezi. Source: New Vision

Bostwana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi is expected in Kenya for a three-day State visit on matters related to agriculture, trade and investment, tourism, defence and security, health, mining and education. On Sunday, State House spokesperson Kanze Dena said the two countries will sign several agreements during the visit starting Monday. “Several matters of mutual benefit to the people of Kenya and Botswana are expected to be discussed,” she said. ITINERARY President Uhuru Kenyatta will formally receive his counterpart at State House in Nairobi on Tuesday. The presidents will hold talks in private and with their delegations and later address a joint press conference. Source: Daily Nation

Africa is a continent of immense contrasts. It has vast reserves of natural resources but suffers from severe economic inequality. Nevertheless, the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) has brought some reasons for optimism as it presents an important component for economic transformation. Yet, such development must be coupled with clear regulations and guidelines if we are to have any hope of attaining the primary goal of boosting intra-African trade. This, from the beginning should be pioneered with the practical implementation of normative frameworks to support the course. Part of this normative framework is a combination of innovative trends on exported products and intra-country trade which ought to be shaped by policies at the local, national and global levels. In order to optimally leverage on AfCFTA for collective progress and prosperity, we need governance frameworks, protocols and policy systems that ensure inclusive and equitable benefits. Most importantly, we need to embrace the fact that there is a disconnect when it comes to the goods exported within African countries by African countries vis-aʹ-vis the goods exported by African countries outside the continent. To ensure that the member countries reap the benefits that come with AfCTA, this asymmetry ought to be addressed with utmost urgency. According to a study by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the share of intra-African exports as a percentage of total African exports has increased from about ten percent in 1995 to around seventeen percent in 2017. Meanwhile, only 13 per cent of Africa’s world...

Central bankers across Africa are paying special attention to the noises coming out of the U.S. Federal Reserve as they mull impending calls on monetary policy easing. On Thursday, the South African Reserve Bank announced its first cut to interest rates in over a year, lowering rates by 25 basis points to 6.5% as the continent’s most industrialized economy tackles low inflation and its starkest contraction for over a decade in the first quarter. Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and Angola will all set rates this week. Nigeria recently passed measures compelling banks to boost lending, while a drought in Kenya drove up inflation. “Monetary policy in Africa has been held hostage to the Fed hiking cycle for the past 18 months, with African central banks maintaining nominally high domestic interest rates to protect their currencies against capital outflows, despite an improving inflation outlook,” Ipek de Vilder, European executive director at international brokerage network Auerbach Grayson, told CNBC. “The policy is working as 2018 was the first year since 2015, when African currencies were essentially flat vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar relative to annual deprecation about -10% over the previous four years,” she added. When the Fed tightens policy for an extended period it tends to lower demand for traditional U.S.-based safe haven assets, sending investors searching for return elsewhere. This often facilitates a windfall for emerging markets and causes central banks to mirror Fed measures to stabilize supply and demand. The recent shift to a more dovish tone from the Fed has...

African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) was signed during the African Union Summit in Kigali, Rwanda on March 21, 2018. Uganda is part of this bloc. Focusing on the bloc’s modus operandi, the operational phase for AfCFTA was launched on Sunday, July 7 during the African Union summit in Niamey, Niger where Ghana was announced as the host of the trade zone’s headquarters. Countries were required to ratify before bringing into force the trade framework, that is designed to free the continent of tariff barriers, bolster trade among African countries, drive industrialisation and create jobs. At present, 24 countries have submitted their instruments of AfCFTA ratification, including Uganda. Five others have also started the ratification process. How Uganda stands to benefit from the world’s largest trading bloc According to UNCTAD’s December 2018 report, more than 90 per cent of African countries are on the List of Least Developed Countries. AfCTA could be a silver lining for possible relief from predators that have continued to blackmail African economies unfairly through conditional debts, sanctions and other forms of exploitation. Uganda’s commitment to be part of AfCFTA, which is a continentwide economic integration presents enormous opportunities for Ugandans as ensuing benefits for Africa will be immense. If all 55 African countries join a free trade area, it will be the world’s largest (going by the number of countries); covering more than 1.2 billion people and with a combined GDP of 52.5 trillion. It will be the world’s largest free trade area since the...

The Kenya Ports Authority on Sunday began transporting equipment to the Kisumu Port ahead of the launch next month. President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to commission the facility that has been idle for several years. The national government has invested Sh3 billion for the port's revival. KPA managing director Daniel Manduku yesterday told the Star that they have started taking equipment that includes forklift trucks, mobile cranes and tractor-trailers to Kisumu. “Currently, manual labour is used at the port to transfer cargo stored in the warehouse to vessels. Therefore, we need 15-tonne mobile cranes, forklifts trucks and tractor-trailers to support cargo handling,” Manduku said. Opposition chief Raila Odinga, Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia, PS Esther Koimett, Manduku and other top government officials on Saturday inspected the progress of the rehabilitation works. Their visit comes three weeks after President Kenyatta toured the facility on July 7 after returning from visiting Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli. On June 14, Uhuru and Raila made an impromptu tour of the port to check the progress of construction work. Manduku said the President is keen to revive the port because it will promote local and regional trade, create employment, support commercial, agriculture and industrial development around the lake region. “The project will promote the lake shipping industry and its auxiliary services. It will promote local and regional trade to benefit the East African Community,” the MD said. The key rehabilitation works being undertaken by the government include paving the open areas, putting efficient drainage and...

The African Development Bank re-affirmed its intention to boost economic and regional development on the African continent when its Board of Directors approved a $300 million support facility for the Eastern and Southern African Trade & Development Bank (TDB) on Wednesday, 17 July, 2019. The COMESA regional trade and project finance package consists of a composite funded trade finance and project finance facility, and an unfunded trade finance risk participation agreement (RPA). This comes on the heels of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, which came into force in July 2019; and the Bank’s partnership framework featuring African DFIs, including the TDB, which committed to working together to scale up, speed up, and synergise African development. The facility’s trade finance component will enhance the TDB’s confirmation capacity, support its rapidly expanding forfeiture business, and help it become a globally acceptable confirming bank. The project finance component will facilitate the delivery of export-oriented infrastructure, which will promote regional trade within the COMESA region.  The facility further demonstrates the Bank’s longstanding and growing partnership with the TDB as a regional development finance institution in pursuit of shared development goals. In presenting the project to the Board, the Bank’s Director for financial sector development, Stefan Nalletamby, said that the RPA “will enable the Bank and the TDB to share confirmation risk on African issuing banks. This will promote broad-based economic growth on the African continent by making international trade easier. It will benefit no less than 43 financial institutions operating in...