Kenya National Highway Authority (KeNHA) has put in place an elaborate programme to improve road infrastructure to enhance traffic flow around the port of Mombasa. Mega infrastructure developments are taking shape in Mombasa that are set to enhance its image as the gateway to East and Central Africa and as a tourism hub. The ongoing construction and upgrade of infrastructural projects worth billions of shillings were aimed at facilitating transportation of goods and passengers and boost the economy of the coastal city. In the past, Mombasa, which is a hub for shipping activities, suffered from serious traffic bottlenecks which hindered the flow of cargo in and out of the port of Mombasa. KeNHA’s coast regional director Eng. Jared Makori says a number of projects to expand the capacity of existing roads and upgrades would significantly ease traffic for all commuters going in and out of Mombasa Island. “The upgrades will significantly ease traffic thereby reducing travel time and improving productivity,” he said. The huge road projects completed include the expansion of the Sh6 billion airport-Port Reitz, Magongo and Mombasa-Miritini roads into dual carriageways, interchanges and overpasses. Eng. Makori said other road projects taking shape included the dual carriageway of the Mombasa-Mariakani Highway, Dongo-Kundu Bypass and Mombasa Northern Bypass which were set to increase Mombasa port efficiency. He noted that the construction of the new roads and upgrading of the existing ones would help reduce travel time, improve connectivity as well as improve socio-economic activities in the coastal counties of Mombasa,...

United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May's three-day whirlwind tour of sub-Saharan Africa on a mission to strengthen Britain’s post-Brexit trade and investment may not offer much to the continent after it became apparent that the UK will be planning to roll over "copycat" European Union agreements with African nations. In her first stop in South Africa, the Prime Minister announced plans to carry over the European Union’s Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the five member Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) once the EU’s deal no longer applies to the UK. “I am announcing an additional $5.2 billion of UK investment in African economies, with the hope of further matching investment from the private sector to come. I’m also delighted that we will today confirm plans to carry over EU’s Economic Partnership Agreement with the Southern African Customs Union and also bring in Mozambique, once the EU’s deal no longer applies to the UK,” PM May said, adding that she is planning to push UK to be the G7’s number one investor in Africa in the next four years. For the region, this comes as an anti-climax given that it had hoped that the visit would be part of an attempt at a new African trade deal. It had been hoped that her visit to Kenya would push for improved trade relations, given that the share has been declining continuously for both countries. In July, the UK Trade Commissioner for Africa Emma Wade-Smith said that post-Brexit, Britain would push for lowering...

China will this week host a forum where development projects for the next three years will be discussed. African leaders are going to Beijing for the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC) Summit, hoping to get financing for their mega infrastructure projects. The summit themed "China and Africa: Towards an Even Stronger Community with a Shared Future through Win-Win Cooperation," is meant to link the Belt and Road Initiative with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the AU’s Agenda 2063 and individual countries' development plans. But it comes at a time when some African countries are grappling with an external debt burden and a trade balance favouring Beijing. Credit rating firms and global financial institutions have been advising against taking out further loans, instead recommending fiscal consolidation to arrest the ballooning debt. Kenya, for instance, had taken over $5 billion from China as at the end of March 2018 while Uganda owed China $1.6 billion. Kenya’s National Treasury has recently been under pressure to slow down the growth of public debt, with the International Monetary Fund raising its concerns. Related Content If Beijing sneezes, East Africa will catch a bad cold Comesa defends deals with China Why Asian giants have eyes on resource rich EA China can deliver African continent’s growth miracle Even then, East African Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda — who is also the African Union chairman — Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya are expected to attend the summit and seek financing for their...

East African Community and Regional Development Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohammed has said the five countries that make up the regional bloc are committed to full integration. Speaking in Mombasa on Wednesday, Mr Mohammed said the five member states were working to remove obstacles to full integration. "A key part of our ongoing deliberations is how to have legislators working towards supporting the integration process," he said on the sidelines of a meeting convened by the Parliamentary Select Committee on regional integration. "I will not pay much attention to teething problems facing the integration. We are working well with all member states." Country's exports Mohammed said the East African Community (EAC) was important for Kenya because it absorbed up to 25 per cent of the country's exports. "I wish to stress that as a country we are committed to EAC. We want to make sure that previous work and achievements in the integration processes benefit all." The CS said the integration targeted a border-less EAC. "Going forward, we aspire for a political federation." The House committee called for measures to ensure that the country remained competitive in trade even after integration. “Regional integration has some bearing on our country but we are going to come up with measures to ensure that no country overtakes us in trade while at the same time protecting foreign investors," said Samburu West MP Naisula Lesuuda.   Source Standard Media

NAIROBI, KENYA —  An international money transfer company has launched an online service for East Africans to send and receive money more easily. Analysts say WorldRemit will lower the cost of transferring money and boost African trade and economies. Africa has become a thriving market for money transfer companies as its telecommunication facilities improve and its economies grow. WorldRemit, a British-based money transfer company, recently launched a new digital service in four East African countries. The company facilitates the transfer of at least $1.6 billion to Africa each year. The co-founder and the head of WorldRemit, Ismail Ahmed, told VOA how money transfers in Africa have changed over the years. “When we launched our services, 99 percent of remittances were cash both on the sending and receiving side. But today that is changing fast and in the next few years we think as much as 50 to 60 percent of international remittances would move from traditional physical cash, traditional remittances, to digital. And that’s why our services has grown very fast in the last few years,” he said. Ahmed said that as transactions become digital, the cost of each transfer comes down, and tracking money becomes easier. “It’s easier for businesses and individuals to move within countries but also across countries. It’s easier to fight financial crime because once the transaction becomes digital, there is an audit trail compared to cash where there is no audit trail," he said. Gerrishon Ikiara is an international economic affairs lecturer at the University...

By Owen Wagabaza Uganda’s freight and logistics industry started with the building of the Uganda Railway. At the time, the major purpose of the railway was to transport copper at Kilembe mines. Coming all the way from Mombasa, the railway made things possible, especially for those along the railway line. The first railway into Uganda was extended in the mid- 1920s from Nakuru to Soroti through Tororo in 1929, before coming down to Jinja through Namasagali. The railway finally reached Kampala in 1931, before being extended to Kasese in western Uganda, where it reached in 1956 and the northern line reaching Pakwach en route to Arua in 1964. No borders In the 1960s, the three East African countries of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania decided to form the East African Community (EAC). The EAC was more of a country with no borders between the three countries. “There was one airline under the name East African Airlines, all the ports belonged to the community under the East African railways and harbours and most importantly, there was one currency, the East African shilling. One would move from one country to another without any identification. Passenger trains would travel all the way from Kasese to Mombasa without any hindrance,” Charles Kareeba, the chairperson of Uganda Shippers Council, says. In 1977, however, the EAC collapsed, and this led to a change in many things. The three partner states, including Zambia, had bought ships under the East African National Shipping Line. “With our own ships, we carried...

President Yoweri Museveni has called for meaningful cooperation between Africa, China and the larger BRICS bloc which ensures that there is a win – win balance in trade as opposed to the imperialism that has for the last centuries put Africa at a losing end. Museveni who is the Chairman of the East African Community (EAC) made the comments while speaking at the just concluded China – Africa Cooperation Forum held in Beijing. The forum was hosted by President Xi Jinping of China and attended by several African Heads of State. During the forum, President Museveni made a case for East Africa and the rest of the continent, particularly the investment opportunities that exist and the incentives such as low electricity and a large market that make doing business cheaper. We are about to add 600MW and 183MW to the electricity we already had from the Jinja and Bujagali dams and scores of other smaller hydro-power houses,” Museveni said, also noting the development of the road and railway infrastructure. All this, therefore, offers good investment opportunities. Chinese companies have, indeed, already worked with us on both the elements of infrastructure and the production of industrial goods,” he said. Currently, the rate of return on investment in East Africa is 11%, which will be further increased to 15% by the improved supply of electricity and lower transport costs, he said. While he credited China for its non-intrusive policy towards Africa and supporting its development without making demands, Museveni said that this...

BEIJING/CAIRO -- China is seeking to further expand trade with Africa as a way to reduce risk from the U.S. trade dispute, a strategy made clear at a two-day summit ended Tuesday in Beijing. "Expanding imports from Africa helps spread the risk presented by the U.S.-China trade war," an employee of a Chinese state-owned oil major told Nikkei. At the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the two sides adopted a joint statement and a three-year action plan, laying out plans to deepen cooperation in various fields. The leaders from both sides have "reached significant common ground and spoken with one voice on all major issues," Chinese President Xi Jinping told reporters at the closing of the event. Priority areas of cooperation include boosting trade, nurturing African industry and strengthening security. During Tuesday's session, Xi also stressed the importance of opposing protectionism and supporting free trade, an implicit reference to the go-it-alone attitude of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Xi called on African leaders to work together for both sides to develop and prosper together. For China, Africa's biggest trading partner, the value of trade with the continent for the January-July period grew 20% year-on-year, with imports jumping 30% to $56.8 billion and exports to Africa climbing 10% to $59.3 billion. China imported more crude oil from Angola and other countries in an apparent effort to compensate for declining imports of natural gas from the U.S. amid the two powers' mutual hiking of tariffs, as well as Washington's move to impose sanctions on Iranian crude oil. In 2017, about 40% of China's crude oil imports came from...

President Paul Kagame has backed the Africa-China development framework announced on Monday by Chinese President Xi Jinping. President Kagame was speaking on Tuesday at a roundtable discussion organised as part of the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). Kagame said that the summit’s declaration on closer cooperation and the Beijing Action Plan capture the key issues and provide an ideal roadmap for the way forward. “Both the Summit Declaration and the Beijing Action Plan capture the key issues and provide a roadmap for next steps. Rwanda supports the adoption of these texts and strongly endorses the vision of a community with a shared future,” the President said. He said that aspects of the development framework will bring the two partners closer and lead to the achievement of common and individual goals. “Of particular importance is that the Beijing Action Plan is intended to boost Africa and China’s existing development frameworks. The Forum’s expanded cooperation areas will surely bring us closer to our goals,” Kagame, who is also the Chair of the African Union, said. Under the framework, China will extend $60b of financing to Africa in the form of government assistance as well as investment and financing by financial institutions and companies. The financing includes $15b of grants, interest free loans and concessional loans, $20b in credit lines and $10b earmarked as development financing. A further $5b will serve as a special fund for financing imports from Africa. The development framework, among other things, will encourage...

There is disquiet at the Port of Mombasa and the quiet storm is shortly coming ashore. The Container Freight Stations (CFSs) are facing eminent closures due to direct ferrying of inbound cargo by the SGR into the modernised Nairobi Inland Container Depot (ICD). Is the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and the Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) — both government institutions — competing with the private sector? The SGR-deal seems to contain cryptic clauses that are clearly latent to a majority of Kenyans. Being a public good that Kenyans are heavily indebted, its function to facilitate trade should be paramount. Seeing that the freight being ferried by the SGR belong to private entities, the contractual terms and conditions in the bills of lading at the ports of origin need to be respected if not strictly adhered to. While the government can introduce policy and change both legal and regulatory frameworks within the logistics industry, such amendments should be considerate of the already existing structures, processes and functions. Containerisation has revolutionised maritime shipping and port terminal operations and supported the substantial growth in international transoceanic trade over the last decades. Aside from politics, indeed the Port of Mombasa (and its hinterland) has not reached its optimal potential as the regional port of choice within East and Central Africa. It only lacks viable and rigorous competition from Dar es Salaam etc. Effective regionalisation of the Port of Mombasa would make the owners of the CFSs go to sleep without worrying about the ongoing play...