From support for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence to supporting forestry programmes, Finnish aid to Tanzania cannot be overstated. It is imperative that we remember how effectively Finland has aligned its assistance funding with Tanzania's development needs vis-à-vis the National Five Year Development Plan 2016/17-2020/21 and Vision 2025. Despite a reduction in development aid from the Finnish government to countries such as Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Zambia and Nepal, Finland still maintains a huge assistance programme. It is worth noting that in its development aid strategy, Finland aims to ensure that its cooperation with Tanzania moves from aid to trade, economic cooperation, research and culture. The recent visit to Kenya and Tanzania by the Nordic country's minister for International Trade and Development, Mr Kai Mykkänen, was instructive, bearing in mind that Finland's foreign relations are premised on trade.  Mr Mykkänen led a delegation that included representatives of over 20 private companies specialising in energy, water and sanitation, technology, agriculture value addition and education. Tanzania one of the largest recipients of Finnish aid, and it goes without saying that Finnish aid to Tanzania has generally produced desirable results. Besides, Tanzania is the fastest developing economy in East Africa. The country's economic growth has generally been steady over the last decade, averaging between five and seven per cent. Projected growth for 2016 is about seven per cent. Not surprisingly, Tanzania has attracted enviable quantities of foreign direct investment in recent years, thanks to its rapidly developing industrial sector. In 2015...

Cargo owners have up to midnight to furnish the Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA) with verified gross mass details of a packed container. Among the basic information required are the equipment location, standardisation certificate and business registration certificate. The rule to verify gross mass of a packed container took effect on July 1, and is one of the requirements introduced after amendments were made to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) by International Maritime Organisation (IMO) members. “This information must be provided to the master or the master’s representative sufficiently in advance of loading for proper stowage and safe carriage of the cargo. Any packed container received at the port without the verified gross mass shall not be loaded on to a ship,” KMA’s acting director general Comas Cherop said in a statement. The SOLAS amendments provide that there are two methods shippers may use to determine the container weight once the container packing process has taken place. This requirement is applying globally, and IMO directed that shippers, freight forwarders, vessel operators, and terminal operators must establish policies and procedures to ensure the implementation of this regulatory change. Under the SOLAS amendments, there are two accepted methods for weighing. Method one requires weighing the container after it has been packed. The second one requires weighing all the cargo and contents of the container and adding those weights to the container’s tare weight as indicated on the door of the container. “Weighing of all packages and cargo...

East Africa continues to experience robust Private Equity (PE) activity and an increasingly strong exit environment according to the latest Spotlight on East Africa Private Equity report East Africa continues to experience robust Private Equity (PE) activity and an increasingly strong exit environment according to the latest Spotlight on East Africa Private Equity report released by the African Private Equity and Venture Association. The results indicate that the region’s diversified economies and newly emerging markets are becoming increasingly attractive to investors on the continent at a time when other regions have been exposed to commodity price-driven volatility. The findings show that East Africa reported a total of 167 PE deals between 2010 and 2016, with a total deal value of $1.4 billion (Shs5 trillion). Mr Berhane Demissie, the managing partner at Cepheus Growth Capital Partners, said: “East Africa is emerging as one of the most attractive regions for PE investment in Africa.” Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania demonstrate strong growth figures, with Kenya, the region’s largest market, accounting for 53 per cent of reported PE deals. Uganda came second at a distant 19 per cent followed by Tanzania at 10 per cent. Other findings highlight that although PE deal activity in East Africa is more focused on SMEs, a handful of large transactions have significantly affected year-on-year total deal values in the past. In his opinion about the member states on the findings, Mr Stephen Kaboyo, the managing partner at Alpha Capital, said majority of the companies in East Africa are...

Last week the infrastructure authorities announced a Sh49 billion budget increase over the next five years to convert the ongoing Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project from diesel to electric traction. This is a positive design modification that is bound to add quantifiable economic and green values to Kenya. When implemented, the Kenya rail systems will, since early 1900s, have transitioned from steam traction, to diesel engines, and finally to electric motors. The only lamentable fact is that the decision to electrify SGR was apparently “forced” on Kenya by Uganda and Rwanda as a condition for future rail connectivity through the two countries. Many of us had from the very beginning expressed strong opinions that diesel traction was retrogressive when the whole world was directionally going electric. Our neighbour Ethiopia last month commissioned a new 750-kilometre electric SGR running from Addis to the Red Sea port of Djibouti. Technically, whichever methods are used to convert from diesel to electric locomotives, there is a definite budgetary wastage which could have been avoided if we went electric from the onset. However, budgetary and procurement effectiveness is not the focus of this article which only seeks to address the broader economic and green benefits of the planned SGR shift to electrification. Use of electricity by SGR reduces use of foreign exchange on imported diesel which improves the country’s balance of payments and trade. Secondly, electrification shall be delivering on carbon reductions in the transportation sector. It can be correctly assumed that the electricity to...

President Uhuru Kenyatta has asked the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) to assist the business community overcome trade barriers in order to actualise free trade across the East African Community (EAC). He said obstacles such as long clearing procedures, road blocks and changes in regulations negatively impacted business expansion. In a speech delivered by Senate Speaker Ekwee Ethuro on Tuesday, Mr Kenyatta said Eala and the EAC partner states are duty-bound to support the business community address challenges they face. “Our business community has been a keen partner and driver of our integration process. We are, therefore, duty-bound to support them in addressing the challenges they face in conducting and expanding their businesses,” he said. The Eala recently passed a binding legislation to eliminate non-tariff barriers (NTB) to trade among the EAC Partner states. NTBs come in various forms and often limit market access, changing the quantities of goods traded or increasing the prices of the goods. Mr Kenyatta noted the bringing into force of the EAC NTB Act 2015 was laudable and a critical area that requires concerted efforts from all, to bring a long-lasting and sustainable solution to the NTB problem. He said there is a need to do more in ensuring industrialisation flourishes and agriculture is given priority. “While keeping up our focus on infrastructural developments, we need to ensure that the goods that are carried on these roads and on the railway are made in East Africa,” he said. In his address to the Assembly in...

NAIROBI (Xinhua) -- Kenya and Uganda on Monday launched the Northern Economic Corridor Master Plan that provides the blueprint for the development of infrastructure that interconnects the East African region. Kenya’s Ministry of Transport Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development, Infrastructure Secretary Francis Gitau told a forum in Nairobi that the corridor will link Kenya’s sea port of Mombasa to Uganda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. "The Northern Economic Corridor has several large bottlenecks in logistics which cause inefficiency of logistics and therefore hinders growth in the region," Gitau said. "The aim of the master plan is to ensure that landlocked countries that depend on Kenya’s sea port can easily and conveniently access the rest of the world," Gitau said during the International Seminar on the Northern Economic Corridor. "When fully implemented, the master plan will reduce the cost and time of travel between the East African countries," he said. The transport corridor will have multimodal options including road, rail, waterway and a pipeline. The master plan also includes development of infrastructure to link agricultural and industrial production zones with key domestic and external markets. Government data indicate that total import and export freight from the Mombasa port will hit 61 million tons in 2030, which is 2.3 times the current amount. "We therefore need to upgrade the Northern Economic Corridor because it will handle most of the cargo," he said. The Kenyan official said that intra-Africa trade remains low compared to that of the rest of the...

Kigali: The Government of Rwanda and the Kingdom of Netherlands signed a financing agreement worth €30 million (approximately Frw 25.8billion) to support national program that finances basic infrastructure projects in districts in order to enhance living conditions of the population. According to the Ministry of Finance and Economy planning, the support in form of a grant will create enabling environment for food security and local economic development; hence contribute to the achievements of Rwanda national targets of poverty reduction and economic development. The support is in line with the long term partnership that has exists between Netherlands and Rwanda in the area of decentralization in general and local economic development in particular since 2007. “Priority will be given to income-generating and economic infrastructure projects, while all projects will be selected based on the District Development Plans. In line with Government’s decentralization policies and strategies, the project will allow local government to implement local priorities, thus making them also more responsive to the specific local needs and enhancing local accountability”, Claver Gatete, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning said. “This support fits in well with Rwanda’s development programs and country system. The results of this colaboration will contribute to poverty reduction and connect local communities to economic opportunities”, Frédérique de Man, the Ambassador of Netherlands to Rwanda said. Guided by the pillars of EDPRS2, local economic development strategy has been adopted to by the Government of Rwanda to guide districts in the process of developing their local economies through wealth...

Kenya plans to revive its cotton industry, a major foreign-exchange earner until the 1980s, amid strong demand for lint from domestic mills and the potential to supply manufacturers exporting clothing and textiles to the U.S. under a preferential trade deal. The government is planning training and credit facilities for farmers as part of a bid to restore production that peaked at 38,000 metric tons of seed cotton in 1984-85. Kenya currently produces 15,700 tons of seed cotton, creating about 5,240 tons of lint. Demand for the latter is about 37,000 tons, with the shortfall imported from neighboring countries, according to Fanuel Lubanga, a development manager at the state-run Agriculture and Food Authority. The initiative comes as manufacturers in East Africa’s biggest economy are counting on apparel exports to the U.S. growing 5% this year after the U.S. extended its African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, by a decade. “The potential that we have for our cotton through the AGOA exports is a strong motivation to grow the industry,” Lubanga said in an interview in the capital, Nairobi. He said national output is expected to double during the 2017 harvest because farmers are now using seeds bought from Israel instead of recycling seeds, previously a common practice. [CHARTBEAT: 3] East Africa could potentially export garments valued at as much as $3 billion annually by 2025, according to a 2015 McKinsey report. Affordable electricity and cheap labor--with monthly salaries as low as $60--make producers such as Kenya and Ethiopia attractive to...

Nairobi — Kenya is set to host a group of investors from Jordan as the two countries seek to strengthen their political, social and economic ties. The 100-strong delegation of investors and business representatives will be in the country in mid December to meet traders in tea, coffee, hides and skins, aviation, food and beverages and the hospitality industry. Other sectors that will be represented include medical, health and the construction industry. Principal Secretary for the State Department of Trade in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Co-operatives, Chris Kiptoo said that the visit is a welcome development following the recent call on the state by King Abdulla of Jordan. "As a regional economic power house and with the number of incentives that we give to any investors the Jordanian delegation will find plenty of opportunities to partner with local investor," said Dr Kiptoo. "Investors in Jordan are taking heed of their Head of State to explore trading opportunities in East Africa and Kenya in particular. Jordan has some of the best specialty hospitals in the world, is renowned globally for their aviation prowess and well developed cosmetics industry. The country is also known for their dealings in oil, refrigeration/cooling and heavy importation of tea coffee, meat and leather products. The visit will involve an exhibition at the KICC, business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) meetings as well as industry, plant and farm visits. Source: All Africa

TANZANIA Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) yesterday launched a freight and logistics platform in Dar es Salaam, calling upon the government and other key players to engage amicably in business to enhance the services in the country. Inaugurating the launch that drew in many stakeholders which form TPSF in its voice of the representing different private businesses owners which attended the occasion, Angelina Ngalula thanked the government for setting aside 2.18 trilion/- in its 2016/17 budget for the growth of the sector in the country. She named some of the business owners as Transporters Association of Tanzania (TAT), Tanzania Truck Owners Association (TATOA), to Tanzania Shipping Agents Association (TASAAA), among others. She said they collectively require strategic thinking and planning to improve economy that is not a one-man affair, adding that the private sector must marry with the government to revolutionise and improve the business climate currently prevailing in the country. She asked the government on behalf of the other key players in TPSF to address barriers in the market which create obstacles in their businesses, singling one as “consumers who must be protected in their rights and only served with standardised quality goods. ” Promising to conduct a survey to improve the business climate in the country, the chairperson of TPSF said that Dar es Salaam port and railway should be under one umbrella as in South Africa where the merge is doing well as they save time to consult one another as one body in business. She also mentioned...