Around the same time last week, Germany’s Angela Merkel and the UK’s Theresa May visited countries in Africa. But the timing of the visits from leaders of two of Europe’s leading economies was conspicuous as, starting today (Sept. 3), nearly all African leaders will attend the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation summit in Beijing where China is expected to, once again, dole out large loan packages. For their part, Merkel and May had their own goals too. While they came bearing gifts, in the long run, they will be hoping for reciprocal benefits. Merkel’s talks at each of her three stops in Senegal, Ghana, and Nigeria focused on stemming the flow of migrants heading to Europe in search of a better life. The German chancellor, with nearly a dozenGerman CEOs in tow, pressed for increased investment to create jobs which will offer locals viable livelihoods and disincentivize migration. And she had some success: German car giant Volkswagen announced plans to expand operations in both Ghana and Nigeria promising more investment and jobs in two of West Africa’s largest economies. But there’s a political upside for Merkel too. Having come under pressure for her handling of the growing migrant influx in Germany, reversing the trend will be crucial for her party during the next federal elections. British prime minister Theresa May was more unabashed about the purpose of her first ever Africa tour with stops in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya. As Brexit looms, May is looking to “deepen and strengthen” the UK’s “global partnerships,” even if it requires busting out awkward dance moves. May signed trade deals,...

KeNHA Coast Regional director Eng. Jared Makori said on Monday that huge road projects completed in Mombasa 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 include the dual carriageway of the Mombasa-Mariakani Highway, Dongo-Kundu Bypass and Mombasa Northern Bypass which are set to increase Mombasa port efficiency. He noted that the construction of the new roads and upgrading of the existing ones will help reduce travel time, improve road connectivity as well as improve socio-economic activities in the coastal city. Makori said the construction of the six-lane Mombasa-Mariakani road at a cost of Sh22 billion has begun with funding from the European Investment Bank, Africa Development Bank and the national government. The 18 km long Dongo-Kundu Bypass Highway also known as Mombasa Southern Bypass seeks to connect Mombasa Mainland West with Mombasa mainland South and forms part of a three-phase plan to decongest Mombasa and open up south coast for business and tourism. The Port Reitz-Moi Airport road project is jointly funded by the British government through Trade Mark East Africa and the national government to the tune of Sh. 5.2 billion. Work on the Sh2.7 billion Changamwe-Magongo road project has completed and has paved the way for heavy trucks accessing Kenya Oil Refinery and Kenya Pipeline and acting as ‘thoroughfare for commercial trucks leaving the port of Mombasa’. The Changamwe-Magongo road project being handled by the KeNHA and Chinese company China Wu Yi forms a key link between the port of Mombasa and the Moi International Airport. It consists of a reinforced concrete, dual carriageway flyover and two-lane road and provides the necessary connection to the...

African countries have shown a healthy appetite for Chinese loans but some experts now worry that the continent is gorging on debt, and could soon choke. The Entebbe-Kampala Expressway is still something of a tourist attraction for Ugandans, nearly three months after it opened. The 51km (31 mile), four-lane highway that connects the country's capital to the Entebbe International Airport was built by a Chinese company using a $476m (£366m) loan from the China Exim Bank. It has cut what was a torturous two-hour journey through some of Africa's worst traffic into a scenic 45-minute drive into the East Africa nation's capital. Uganda has taken $3bn of Chinese loans as part of a wider trend that Kampala-based economist Ramathan Ggoobi calls its "unrivalled willingness to avail unconditional capital to Africa". "This debt acquired from China comes with huge business for Chinese companies, particularly construction companies that have turned the whole of Africa into a construction site for rails, roads, electricity dams, stadia, commercial buildings and so on," the Makerere University Business School lecturer told the BBC. The Chinese loans come as many African countries are once again in danger of defaulting on their debts more than a decade after many had their outstanding borrowing written off. At least 40% of low-income countries in the region are either in debt distress or at high risk, the International Monetary Fund warned in April. Chad, Eritrea, Mozambique, Congo Republic, South Sudan and Zimbabwe were considered to be in debt distress at the end...

Chinese President Xi Jinping offered another $60 billion in financing for Africa on Monday and wrote off some debt for poorer African nations, while warning against funds going towards “vanity projects”. Speaking at the opening of a major summit with African leaders, Xi promised development that people on the continent could see and touch, but that would also be green and sustainable. China has denied engaging in “debt trap” diplomacy, and Xi’s offer of more money comes after a pledge of another $60 billion at the previous summit in South Africa three years ago. Xi, addressing leaders at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, said the new $60 billion will include $15 billion of aid, interest-free loans and concessional loans, a credit line of $20 billion, a $10 billion special fund for China-Africa development, and a $5 billion special fund for imports from Africa. Chinese companies will be encouraged to invest no less than $10 billion in the continent in the next three years, he said. Government debt from China’s interest free loans due by the end of 2018 will be written off for indebted poor African countries, as well as for developing nations in the continent’s interior and small island nations, Xi said. “China-Africa cooperation must give Chinese and African people tangible benefits and successes that can be seen, that can be felt,” he said. China will carry out 50 projects on green development and environmental protection in Africa, focusing on fighting climate change, desertification and wildlife protection, Xi...

A trade war is a side effect of protectionism that occurs when one country (say country A) raises tariffs on another country’s (Country B) imports in retaliation for Country B raising tariffs on Country A’s imports commonly known as ‘tit-for -tat.’ Protectionism refers to government actions and policies that restrict or restrain international trade, often with the intent of protecting local businesses and jobs from foreign competition. In ordinary terms, a tariff is a tax imposed on imported goods and services. Trade tension started this year when the United States of America President Donald Trump on July 6, imposed tariffs on 818 goods worth of $34 billion (Shs128 trillion) of imports from China. This move substantially escalated the US-China trade tension (trade war). In retaliation to US’ move China announced a 25 per cent charges on $16 billion (Shs60.2 trillion) worth of US goods the move which is shaking the global trade arena because of its possible effect in global economy. The US has already imposed $50 billion in tariff on Chinese imports including $16 billion and threatened to follow up with levies on further $200 billion of products. Any impact on Uganda? As a result, the trade tension between the world’s largest economy and the second largest world economy has caused a slowdown in global trade. To find out the current trade tension between US and China could affect Uganda, Prosper magazine spoke to experts who gave their insights on the current situation. Much as the impact of the...

China-Africa partnership catalyses sustainable development, a senior United Nations official said. The win-win cooperations, between African countries and China “will put Africa on a sustainable development pathway,” Ahunna Eziakonwa, assistant administrator and director of the Regional Bureau for Africa at the United Nations Development Program, told Xinhua in an interview. Eziakonwa will join the delegation led by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to attend the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) on Sept. 3-4. During the interview, she named the railway connecting landlocked Ethiopia with Djibouti, the Mombasa-Nairobi railway in Kenya, the hydropower plants in Uganda and some other major Chinese-assisted infrastructure projects in Africa, saying China-Africa cooperation has entered the fast lane. China and Africa have a long history of cooperation, which has greatly intensified in the past decade, especially in the last five years, she said. It is exciting to see Africa making incredible developments with China, she added.  Africa has received help from many countries, yet its relationship with China has unleashed explosive growth in the region, she said. China’s development experience is relevant to Africa, she said, adding that Chinese investments in Africa, especially those in infrastructure, have ignited hope for the region. “Having been at a similar development point in history gives a lot of developing and emerging economies hope for transformation, accelerated human development and innovation,” Eziakonwa said. The 2015 FOCAC held in South Africa witnessed an agreement between China and Africa to carry out 10 major cooperation plans. These plans will help the...

President Paul Kagame has described the existing relationship between China and Africa as one based on equality, mutual respect and “a commitment to a shared wellbeing.” The Head of State was addressing leaders from across Africa and China at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit that is underway in the Chinese capital, Beijing. The forum, seventh of its kind, is a platform where all African countries and China meet periodically to see how to collectively strengthen ties with an aim of building a shared future. “The relationship between Africa and China is based on equality, mutual respect, and a commitment to shared well-being. This was our starting point eighteen years ago, when the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was established,” said President Kagame, who is also the Chairperson of the African Union. According to the President, ever since the first forum, China’s actions have demonstrated that a stronger Africa is seen as an opportunity to invest in, rather than as a problem or a threat. “China has continued to lead the way in showing what is lost in not engaging and partnering with Africa,” he said. The President said that the Forum has grown into a powerful engine of cooperation, fully aligned with Africa’s Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals. Since its establishment 18 years ago, FOCAC has achieved a significant mark of China-Africa cooperation, with trade volume between China and Africa amounting to 170 billion U.S. dollars in 2017. This represents a major increase from the just over...

Dar/Kampala. Tanzania and Uganda have reached an agreement on how to conduct cross-border sugar trading between the two East African Community (EAC) partner states. This comes after Tanzania recently slapped a 25 per cent import duty on 12,000 bags (600 tonnes) of Ugandan sugar. The permanent secretary in the ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Prof Joseph Buchweishaija, told The Citizen yesterday that following their recent meeting in Kampala, Uganda, the two countries agreed to sort out their differences on how Tanzania should import sugar from Uganda. “We agreed that when there is a sugar deficit in Tanzania, our Ugandan colleagues will fill the gap, and that will happen only when there’s a surplus there,” he said. Last month, Tanzania imposed a 25 per cent import duty on sugar from Uganda. Mr Jim Kabeho, the Uganda Sugar Manufacturers Association chairman and outgoing East African Business Council chairman, termed this as “blatant disregard” for the EAC Common Market Protocol. Under the Protocol, locally-produced sugar is zero-duty rated in cross-border trade. But speaking during a joint press conference with Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni in Dar es Salaam last month, President John Magufuli said his government banned sugar from Uganda because unscrupulous traders were using the opportunity to bring in sugar originally smuggled into Uganda. Tanzania’s four sugar factories – namely Mtibwa and Kilombero in Morogoro; Kagera Sugar in Kagera and TPC in Kilimanjaro – annually produce about 300,000 tonnes of sugar, against the domestic demand of 420,000 tonnes. In such a situation,...

Arusha. Tunduma border post between Tanzania and Zambia is being upgraded into a One Stop Border Post (OSBP) to fast-track increased movement of people and goods. It will operate along the same pattern as the recently opened 15 similar border posts already established within the East African Community (EAC) bloc. Two other jointly operated border posts linking the region with neighbouring blocs are being set up at Moyale along the Kenya/Ethiopia border and Gisenyi on Rwanda/DR Congo boundary. "New OSBPs are being established to link the Community with other blocs because our trade is not limited to East Africa", said Stephen Analo from the EAC secretariat. He told officials from Tanzania and Kenya manning the Sirari/Isebania border route last week that EAC the new unified borders would play the same role; enhancing trade. "If we don't enhance trade with our neighbours, we will end up with goods clogged at outer borders", he said at the end training of the officials manning border operations. Mr. Analo, a tax expert, urged officers from the two countries where such facilities are being set up to cooperate fully so as to tap in the benefits of unified border operations such as increased tax collections. "Integrated border coordination is not a foreign concept. It is the same all over the world", he said, noting that they are necessary due to increased movement of goods, services and people across EA borders. At the jointly operated border posts, Immigration, Customs, bureaux of standards, phytosanitary inspections, goods clearance...

Increasing trade between the EU and the ACP (African-Caribbean-Pacific), particularly African countries, lay at the heart of the ambition of the Cotonou Agreement. That was supposed to be embodied by regional Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) with the EU. But it has not worked out that way. Eight percent of EU exports and less than 7% of EU imports came to and from Africa in 2016. Slow to be negotiated, in large part because many African regional blocs felt the European Commission was pushing them to open up access to their markets to European firms, only one EPA has been successfully ratified, with the six-member Southern African Development Community (SADC). No way, EPA The sense that African countries won’t allow themselves to be pushed around by the EU on trade is held by Carlos Lopes, appointed in July as the African Union’s High Representative on the post-Cotonou talks. “The reality is clear that the EPAs were badly negotiated and apart from the SADC, most of them are not implemented,” he told EURACTIV. He added that the deadlines attached to agreeing and ratifying the EPAs were “artificial to give an impression that they were the only way to get access to the European market.” Many African countries can already trade largely duty-free with the EU as ‘least favoured nations’ and felt that the EPAs offered them little. Tanzanian officials have described the proposed EU EPA with the East African Community as “skewed and exploitative”, and such views are shared by a number of...