East Africa registered a growth in foreign direct investment growth last year, performing stronger than other regions across the continent, attracting 30 per cent of the continents total FDI with 197 projects. According to EY Global’s 2018 Africa Attractiveness report, the region recorded a 82 per cent increase in the number of FDI projects last year compared with 2016. “This shifting investment landscape is a function of numerous factors, including multi-speed growth, investment friendly economic policies and, to some extent, regional integration initiatives, particularly in the east of the continent where the East African Community made up of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda has been successful in increasing economic growth since its formation,” reads the report. Kenya, the region’s leading economy, reported a 68 per cent increase in inward investment projects last year, despite political uncertainty in the second half of the year following a prolonged election cycle. British investors were particularly active, with 10 project commitments, followed by Dutch companies. “Kenya’s fast-growing technology sector, nicknamed ‘Silicon Savannah,’ continued to draw foreign investor interest. technology media and telecommunications (TMT) FDI projects in Kenya increased by 44 per cent compared with 2016, largely because of a conducive environment, including a pool of well-resourced IT developers and a high smartphone penetration rate. Related Content FDI slows down even with planned AfCFTA EAC records drop in foreign direct investment Why EAC attracts fewer foreign investments “In addition, the Kenyan government has been active in making the country a viable and...

The government of Tanzania has announced to commence operations on its phase one electric Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) by December next year. Government spokesman, Dr Hassan Abbas confirmed the reports and said, the 300Km phase running from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro is 33% complete. The SGR project which is being undertaken by Turkish company Yapi Merkezi, in partnership with a Portuguese firm, Mota-Engil Africa begun construction works in May last. “The railway in this country was built in 100 years ago, and now we are building the SGR,” said the Government spokesman, Dr Hassan. Also read: Ghana to revamp its railway sector Dar es Salaam to Morogoro  railway The Dar es Salaam to Morogoro  railway will have 6 stations in Dar es Salaam, Pugu, Soga, Ruvu, Ngerengere and Morogoro. There will be three passenger trains in phase one at the starting point that will be taking daily round trips between Dar es Salaam and Morogoro. Each passenger train is capable of making 9 to 12 trips a day or even more The train will use concrete sleepers which improve durability and give the railway network capacity to carry up to 35 tonnes per axle loads. The rails can survive to 40 year before any major repairs while the train bridge  can survive up to 100 years. The Tanzania SGR will have a speed capacity of 160Km/h in comparison to other SGR’s such as Kenya and South Africa that can move up to 120Km/h. Benefits of the SGR Over 26,000 employment opportunities have been created by the US $1.9bn project and more job...

The Port of Mombasa this year expects to handle a total throughput of slightly over 31 million tons and 1.2 million Twenty Foot Equivalent (Teus) up from 30.35 million tons and 1.190 million Teus handled last year. Speaking at the Nyali Golf and Country Club, Mombasa County during the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) Golf Tournament over the weekend, Acting KPA Managing Director, Dr. Arch Daniel Manduku said that despite several business challenges, the Port of Mombasa continues to register growth. ''At KPA the management team and staff reviewed the set goals and agreed to walk the talk and deliver our remit the best way we could,'' Manduku said. He said that for example a fortnight ago, a vessel christened MSC Maxine made her maiden call at the Port of Mombasa with a capacity of 9,411 TEUs, one of the largest container ships ever to dock at the port. "Our team stayed focused and coordinated to register a new performance record of 1450 moves within an eight-hour shift!'' he said. He saluted the combined team of operations and support services at KPA which was doing incredible work in cargo handling. Manduku said that this was the third container operations record set within this year. ''The new record is an improvement of 20 percent from the prior record at the Mombasa Port set in June 2018,'' the MD said. Manduku observed that of importance to note is that transshipment cargo has continued to sustain an upward growth, registering a 40 percent increase...

Kenya recently posted weak results in her trade competitiveness relative to her East Africa Community partners. The latest World Economic Report which measures competitiveness largely influences investor decisions on which countries to invest in and destinations of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI’s). The report placed Kenya at position 122 out of 138 countries in terms of having a competitive macroeconomic environment for investment. This is way below her regional peers - Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda. It was only slightly better than Burundi at 124 despite the latter’s political upheavals and instability. The stability of the macroeconomic environment is important for business and the overall competitiveness of a country. “Macroeconomic disarray harms the economy. The Government cannot provide services efficiently if it has to make high-interest payments on its past debts,” says policy analyst John Ochiel. Mr Ochiel, who works at the UN office in Darfur, Sudan says running fiscal deficits limits the State’s future ability to react to business cycles. Economic growth He says the economy cannot operate efficiently when inflation rates are out of hand. This, he notes reduces economic growth. Trade and Policy expert Daniel Achach says despite the country hosting high profile global trade meetings such as the WTO Ministerial Conference in 2015 and the UNCTAD trade and investment meeting, its woes are yet to end. Kenya has similarly accommodated several high profile delegations and heads of States and signed several bilateral trade pacts and MoUs even as more countries scouting for business opportunities in the country. A...

South Sudan on Friday said it was working on creating an attractive investment climate to lure foreign investors as the country seeks to reinvigorate its economy that has been battered from over four years of conflict. Abraham Maliet Mamer, secretary general for South Sudan Investment Authority, told journalists that the country is open and ready for big foreign investments to revive its economy. “As far as the big picture is concerned, our country is ready to receive investors. Our country has been closed for so long and now is the time to speak loud and clear that our country is ready for investment,” he said in Juba. Mamer said international businesses are welcome to come and invest in South Sudan. He said they are looking toward integrating e-business and e-investment platforms to ease the cost of doing business. The country relies on oil production to finance 98 percent of its fiscal expenditure and recently hinted at boosting oil production levels following disruption by violence which saw production drop to below 165,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 350,000 bpd in 2012. South Sudan is set to host its second oil and gas investment conference on Nov. 21-22 in Juba. The first one took place in October last year Source Coastweek

Singapore's prime minister made an impassioned plea Monday for open markets and warned "political pressures" were driving countries apart, in a swipe at rising protectionism at the start of a gathering of world leaders. Dignitaries including Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and US Vice President Mike Pence are attending this week's summit in the city-state against the backdrop of a months-long trade dispute between Beijing and Washington. Some of the leaders are expected to announce major progress on a massive China-backed trade deal that excludes the US, in a rebuke to President Donald Trump's increasingly unilateralist approach to international commerce. Trump is skipping the annual summit -- which was regularly attended by his predecessor Barack Obama -- in a sign of how far he has withdrawn from attempts to shape the global rules of trade and raising new questions about Washington's commitment to Asia. Addressing a business forum ahead of this week's main meetings, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for Southeast Asian companies to invest more in each other’s' markets and be more open to foreign competition. "The more integrated and open our markets are, and the more conducive our rules and business environments to foreign investment, the larger the pie will grow, and the more we will all benefit," he said. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) "has great potential, but fully realizing it depends on whether we choose to become more integrated, and work resolutely towards this goal in a world where multilateralism is fraying...

The East African Community (EAC) is working on Trade and Investment Portals to enable investors access information on investment opportunities and projects online. This was revealed by the regional body’s Secretary General, Amb Liberat Mfumukeko while receiving the credentials of the Swedish Ambassador to Tanzania, Anders Sjöberg at the EAC Headquarters in Arusha recently. Amb. Mfumukeko said European Union remained “the number one trading partner” for the EAC and urged Sweden to “support capacity building for the private sector and to link business people in Sweden and the EAC.” Amb. Mfumukeko said the EAC was also working on the development of the financial sector and integration of capital markets in the region. The SG further said work on the Constitution of the proposed East African Political Confederation had started with EAC Partner States nominating constitutional experts to the EAC Secretariat. He said the EAC integration process was a progressive idea which was gradually trickling down to the populace as they begin to reap the benefits. In his remarks, Amb. Sjöberg said Sweden was directly supporting sexual reproductive health programmes in the EAC through the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) while there was indirect support for the region’s financial markets and customs sector through a World Customs Organization project. Amb. Sjöberg said Sweden was a keen supporter of free trade and export promotions worldwide since 50 per cent of the country’s GDP comes from exports. “70 per cent of our exports are to the European Union and 30 per cent to...

East African countries stand a chance to be among the biggest beneficiaries of funding from the US government, as President Donald Trump’s administration remains keen to command its influence on Africa. This is in the wake of the widening gap on Sino-African relations which have recently been buoyed by increased lending by the Chinese to the African continent. President Trump signed into law the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act of 2018, On October 5, which creates an International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) and establishes a powerful tool for U.S assistance and foreign policy. The IDFC is coiled towards supporting private investment and development projects in emerging countries, including backing private investment; a move that gives or rather empowers private entities which have previously struggled with funding. Americas move is seen as a shift to counter China which has cemented its position in East Africa as a key lender and developer of mega projects. The region’s economies are reported to have borrowed over $29.42 billion from Beijing in the past 10 years to grow their transport, energy, manufacturing and communication sectors. On the other hand, American companies have struggled to invest in the region and the continent at large where they have cited the challenge of securing financing and mitigating risk as impediment, which has blocked them from competing with the deep-pocketed Chinese for major projects. During the 6th Forum on China-Africa Cooperation held in Beijing, in September this year, President Xi Jinping pledged an additional $60...

Kenya has reverted to importing sugar from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) and East African Community member countries, bringing in more than 70 per cent of the imported produce from these markets in the nine months to September this year. The country imported more than 135,000 tonnes of sugar from Comesa and the EAC, out of the 189,000 tonnes it imported in the nine months to September, a significant reduction from the 933,000 tonnes of sugar it imported last year, of which only 300,000 tonnes was from Community countries. “Within the nine months to September, Comesa-FTA countries supplied Kenya with 84,127 tonnes, while 5,000 tonnes came from Comesa Non-FTA. The EAC provided 51,285 tonnes, with the majority being from Uganda, whereas imports from the rest of the world were 49,208 tonnes,” the latest report from the Sugar Directorate shows. There was also a slight rise in sugar exports in the nine months of this year to 1,947 tonnes against 363 tonnes in the same period last year. “The low exports are attributed to the fact that Kenya is a deficit sugar producer with most of the production being targeted at local consumers. Moreover, Kenyan sugar is expensive and therefore not attractive for export,” the report says. Imports Last year, the country's sugar imports increased by 196 per cent compared with the previous year as traders rushed to ship in duty-free sugar to bridge a local deficit. The significant increase in table sugar imports was due to...

Chinese investors have shown interest in investing in the Bagamoyo Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project to be implemented under the Economic Processing Zone Authority (EPZA). A delegation of six Chinese officials representing major agrobusiness firms and other entities revealed this interest in Dar es Salaam at the weekend. “It’s good for investors to follow up on the progress of the Bagamoyo projects, as this will make it possible for them to seize the available opportunities,” said EPZA investment promotion and facilitation director James Maziku. EPZA and the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) have partnered with China Merchant Holding International (CHMI) and Oman’s State Government Reserve Fund (SGRF) as strategic investors in developing an industrial park and port within the Bagamoyo SEZ. Mr Maziku said the purpose of the Chinese delegation’s visit was to seek more details on the Bagamoyo projects and enable the companies make informed investment decisions, particularly in agriculture. “They want to invest in the agriculture sector with the aim of exporting processed products to China and elsewhere.” Mr Maziku added that a decision by the Chinese to invest in Bagamoyo would come as a big boost to Tanzania’s agriculture sector in particular and the industrialisation drive in general. Speaking on behalf of the delegation, Beijing Urban Development vice president Wang Kai said the Bagamoyo projects, especially the proposed port, would play a key role in the export of goods from Tanzania to China’s Jiangsu Province and other global markets. “The port will be the driver of other mega...