Some panelists at the Stakeholders Dialogue on Continental Trade and Strengthening Implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) have listed steps necessary for smooth takeoff of the Agreement. Speaking during the opening session of the dialogue on Monday in Ethiopia, the panelists were in agreement that it was not yet Uhuru for AfCFTA, despite successes already achieved. The stakeholders meeting was jointly organised by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the Coalition for Dialogue on Africa (CoDA). The News Agency of Nigeria reports that 22 countries have ratified the AfCFTA agreement, meeting the requirements needed for implementation. NAN also reports that Zimbabwe is ready to ratify the Agreement on Tuesday, to bring the number to 23. While Nigeria, Benin and Eritrea are yet to sign up to the AfCFTA agreement, 51 other countries have signed up. One of the panelists, the ECOWAS Permanent Representative to the African Union, Dr Nelson Magbagbeola, called attention to free movement of persons. He said there was need to borrow a leaf from the ECOWAS Trade Equalisation Scheme, adding that this was very critical to the efficiency of AfCFTA. Magbagbeola also pointed out that one of the fears of Nigeria, in withholding signing up to the agreement, is that most African countries do produce goods they lay claim to. “We know for a fact that some countries do not even have factories producing goods they claim are coming from them. “In most cases, what they merely do is to repackage finished goods. There...

The Government of Denmark through her development arm – Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) is to invest some US $9 million (about Shs33.5 billion in improving informal cross border trade and goods standards across Uganda. The money which will be channeled through TradeMark Africa comes as a major boost for the thousands of informal traders plying their businesses at the different borders as it will ensure that their working environments are improved. Over 70 per cent of informal cross border traders in Uganda are women. In addition, part of the money will go towards the improving of the standards of goods manufactured in Uganda. The Head of Mission of the Danish Embassy, Majbrit Holm Jakobsen notes, “Denmark is passionate about promoting private sector development in Uganda. We appreciate Uganda’s efforts to improve the business environment, but more needs to be done, that is why Danida is glad to further partner with TradeMark Africa in increasing trade in the region by creating the necessary conditions for the private sector especially the informal traders who constitute the majority of cross border trade in Uganda. Informal trade directly impacts on the livelihood of the bottom of pyramid which is a key element of Denmark’s engagement in development aid.” Richard Kamajugo, the TMA Chief Operations Officer notes, “We appreciate the continued partnership with the Danida in its support to the Government of Uganda through TradeMark Africa. Danida has already funded the implementation of the Uganda Electronic Single Window which has had a real impact...

Three  Heads of State from the East  Africa Community (EAC) region are set to visit Kenya in August this year to expand their corporation and investment initiatives. The  Ugandan High Commissioner to Kenya, Phibby Otaala  disclosed that the leaders of; Tanzania, Uganda and Democratic  Republic of Congo (DRC) are keen to ensure regional integration is domesticated to benefit citizens at the grassroots. Otaala  said  the  Kenya and Uganda have built a great partnership in trade, investment and tourism which they hope to build  on further. Speaking during the investment Conference and Economic Diplomacy for delegates from both countries in Kisumu on Friday, the  Ambassador  disclosed that  Uganda has 22 industrial parks initiated by the Chinese who are their valuable partners keen to facilitate the economic block. She revealed that so far four counties; Trans Nzoia, Bungoma, Busia and Bomet have already toured Uganda for bench marking on the successful industrial parks and the Kisumu forum was a follow up aimed at enabling the 14 counties raise their  revenue collection. Asked  about the 24 Kenyan fishermen arrested by Ugandan authorities’ Amb. Otaala argued that the move was aimed at  safeguarding the rules and regulations which protected the fishermen from capturing the fingerlings prematurely. However, she promised to follow up the matter to facilitate their release to avoid unnecessary conflicts between the two  neighbouring countries. The  Lake Region Economic Block (LREB) CEO, Abala  Wanga  said Kenya government has so far allocated Kshs. 2.5billion to help support the expansion of maritime transport on...

The U.S. ditched the Trans-Pacific Partnership, while across the Atlantic, the U.K. is trying to extract itself from the European Union and its single market. But while free trade is under threat in much of the world, African countries are heading in the other direction: the continent is on track to create the largest free trade agreement by population that the world has seen since the 1995 creation of the World Trade Organization. That organization has 164 member countries. On May 30, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will become a reality. All but three of Africa’s 55 countries have signed up, creating a free trade area that covers more than a billion people and a collective GDP of over $2 trillion, and includes most of Africa’s largest economies, including South Africa and Egypt. If hold-outs Benin, Eritrea and Nigeria—Africa’s largest economy—join in, that’s a total of 1.2 billion people and $2.3 trillion in GDP. By way of comparison, NAFTA and the EU-Japan free trade agreement each cover a collective GDP of around $22 trillion. But even when added together, they don’t cover as many people as the AfCFTA will if every African nation joins. Here’s what you need to know about the deal that could transform Africa’s business landscape. What’s the goal? Trade within Africa is in a dire state. A mere 17% of African countries’ exports go to other African countries—compare that with intra-regional trade levels of 59% in Asia and 69% in Europe. That means Africa doesn’t feature...

THE East African Community (EAC) Leather Forum has urged the bloc to create readily accessible market for leather products. The forum has called for EAC to fast track the implementation of Regional Leather Strategy. The forum was convened by the East African Business Council (EABC) and brought together over 40 industry champions in leather manufacturing from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. The forum has recommended for the creation of a readily accessible regional market for leather products and a conducive business environment to promote regional value addition in the leather sector. According to World Bank Kenya Leather Industry - Diagnosis, Strategy and Action Plan, Leather and Leather products are among the most widely traded agro-based commodities in the world. The industry has a global estimated trade value of over US$ 150 billion a year, more than five times that of coffee. Despite owning about 15 per cent of the world's cattle population, Africa accounts for only eight percent of the world production of cattle hides and four per cent of world leather production. Speaking at the opening session, Mr Christophe Bazivamo, EAC Deputy Secretary General (Productive and Social Sectors), said the EAC Secretariat and the Partner States have prioritised the development of the Leather Sector Value Chain for job creation and as a means of providing affordable, new and quality options for leather products to the citizens. The 19th Ordinary Summit held in February 2018 in Kampala, directed the Council to put in place mechanisms that support...

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and United National Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) have today launched a Co-delegation Agreement to implement trade facilitation projects in the region. UNCTAD Secretary General Dr Mukhisa Kituyi and his COMESA counterpart Chileshe Kapwepwe launched the Agreement Friday at the COMESA Headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia. Under the Agreement, COMESA delegates to UNCTAD the design and development of national and regional Trade Information Portals (TIPs) and the Customs Automation Regional Centre (CARC). The two activities are worth 3 million euros and will be funded from an 85 million euros kitty provided by the European Union to COMESA under the 11th European Development Fund Trade Facilitation Programme. Out of this amount, 68 million euros will be used to implement trade facilitation and small-scale cross border trade. The TIPs will facilitate easy access to essential trade information in one platform while the CARC will support technical and functional training on the Automated System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA) World Platform thereby improving skills to develop and use applications. This is in addition to developing the latest ASYCUDA Applications to enhance trade facilitation systems at the national, regional and continental levels. COMESA Secretary General said the co-delegation was informed by UNCTAD’s experience and expertise in promoting trade facilitation, and capacity in modernizing Customs Administrations, and ASYCUDA being its intellectual property. “I am confident that UNCTAD will deliver the expected outcomes as enshrined in the Co-delegation Agreement,” she said. In his address Kituyi said the engine...

The African Infrastructure Guarantee Mechanism’ was organised as part of the 3rd African Pension Funds and Alternatives Investment Conference. It was well attended by an audience mostly composed of industry players – private pension fund administrators, trustees, asset managers, government pension funds and development finance institutions. This grouping clearly demonstrates the interest to develop such initiatives to scale up greater investments in the African infrastructure space. The session was moderated by Dr Morgan Pillay Senior Infrastructure Finance Expert from GIZ, who presented the objectives of the AUDA-NEPAD session. To objectives were; to gauge the appetite of institutional investors (pension funds) for the implementation of the African Infrastructure Guarantee Mechanism and discuss its financial potential; and to make use of the Pension Fund conference platform to consult on what can make the concept a reality. This includes possible implementation strategies and concrete action steps towards scaling risk mitigation and an African Guarantee Scheme to enable the mobilisation of African pension fund investment for African infrastructure. The session panel, with representatives from the AUDA-NEPAD, the African Development Bank; the Development Bank of Southern Africa and the Trade and Development Bank gave its interpretation of the African Infrastructure Guarantee Mechanism as instrument of risk mitigation. Industry players were requested to give their thoughts on how the development of such initiative could bring value in facilitating alternative investments in the African Infrastructure space. Deliberations included working with development partners in the development of similar initiatives such as the African Development Bank and its co-guarantee...

The second edition of Build Expo was opened on Wednesday May 23rd by the Minister of Infrastructure, Hon. Ambassador Claver Gatete, at the Kigali Convention Centre.  The event attracted a number of distinguished guests from all walks of life including ambassadors from other countries, foreign ministers, members of the public and private sector and media. The Regional Marketing Director, Duncan Njaye, gave a brief history of Expo Group and said the company started its operations in 1996 with export-oriented international trade exhibitions in the Middle East and East Africa. The company has been able to organize a total of fourteen annual trade fairs in the region and also presented several other events in emerging markets in Africa, China, Australia, India, and Latin America. Minister Gatete commended the work done by Expo Group. ‘’We have just visited different exhibitions and you can see that they touch almost all sectors in Rwanda. I have seen the technologies for energy, construction, water and housing and many other things that will benefit this country that’s moving very fast when it comes to construction,’’ he said. It was also noted by the Minister that Rwanda’s GDP increases by 10% every year and for Rwanda to sustain this there is a need for new technologies, new partners and new friends to make sure that there is growth at a cheaper cost. He thanked the organizers for having brought the services and products closer to the people. ‘’The rate of urbanization, which is currently at 20%, is...

Rwanda has been admitted a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Center as its 55th member during the OECD Forum currently taking place in Paris, France. Rwanda’s accession was announced during the 5th High Level Meeting of the OECD Development Center Governing Board.. Established in 1961, the OECD Development Center is an independent platform for knowledge sharing and policy dialogue between Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member countries and developing economies to allow nations to interact on an equal footing. Accepting Rwanda’s membership, Trade and Industry Minister Soraya Hakuziyaremye said Rwanda’s accession reflects its development path. “On behalf of the Government and people of Rwanda, I wish to convey our appreciation to the OECD Secretariat, as well as the OECD Development Centre teams who have worked with us for four years to ensure Rwanda’s membership. This is a testimony to our transformational development path, our commitment to sharing the lessons learned, and our willingness to enhance cooperation with other member States, while accessing best practices of development from other OECD members,” she said. According to Minister Hakuziyaremye, “Working with and within the Development Center will allow Rwanda to participate and contribute to evidence-based policy dialogue, in particular in reviewing and designing key policies and reforms in terms of youth employment, increasing our tax base, enhancing the role of our private sector and reviewing our industrial policy.” Rwanda applied to join the OECD Center in November 2018. It is the first member from the East African...

The 45th East African Community Consultative Meeting aimed at improving Air Transport in the region was held in in Naivasha, Kenya. The EAC Consultative meeting on facilitation of Air Transport is a forum for discussion on issues that affect air transport in the region in order to comply with Annex 9 (Air Transport Facilitation) and Annex 17 (Aviation Security) of the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation. The meeting refers to the ICAO international standards and recommended practices and proposes appropriate recommendations to be implemented by the Partner States at the various EAC international Airports.  It is hosted by EAC Partner States, twice a year on rotational basis. Addressing the delates from the EAC Partner States, the Principal Secretary in the Republic of Kenya’s State Department of Transport, Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure, Housing, Urban Development and Public Works, Ms. Esther Koimett underscored the importance of EAC Air Transport facilitation forum in ensuring the smooth movement of passengers, goods and aircrafts at all EAC international airports. The Principal Secretary urged Partner States to continuously respond to emerging challenges in order to cope with aviation and non-aviation demands as well as strive to meet international standards. She reminded the participants that Air transport plays a key role in the promotion of trade, tourism and economic growth of the region. “Air Transport facilitation is an important aspect of aviation and the EAC airports have to continuously enhance capacity of existing infrastructure to be able to cope with future aviation demands, meet international requirements and...