Members of the European Parliament are rooting for the extension the October deadline to sign the comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between East African Community (EAC) and the EU. The MPs said the move is meant to salvage Kenya after Tanzania and Burundi stood in the way to the realisation of the deal set to give relief from heavy taxes for the country's exports to the EU.Tanzania has refused to sign the agreement while Burundi is at the verge of being sanctioned by the European Union following political instability in the country.EU chair of a joint delegation of Trade and Development Committee Bernd Lange attending the 14th United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Nairobi said Kenya would be the biggest casualty should the two scenarios persist and the EPA is not signed hence the need to save the situation"Our first proposal is to have the October 1st deadline extended to allow for more time and see whether Tanzania will agree to sign or if Burundi will improve her democratic situation and evade sanction from the European Union. "If none of these happen then I expect that Kenya will apply for the GSP plus and when it is received then we can begin the market access regulations and save Kenya," Mr Lange said.The Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) Plus status will allow Kenya to continue exporting at the current preference terms even if the two countries fail to sort out their issues standing in between the region and a...

I had read and heard about the One Stop Border Post from East Africanists, but was frustrated because no one was putting out a photograph or graphic illustration of how it works. So I decided to check it out, driving from Kisumu into Uganda through the Busia border point. There were surprises aplenty. Something radical is happening with this one-stop thing. When you are entering Uganda from Kenya, you go to a single immigration hall. At one window, a Kenyan immigration official stamps your travel document to log your exit. And you step right over to the next window, hand over your passport and a Ugandan official stamps your entry. If you are a law-abiding citizen, you are through in about two to three minutes. You walk through a short corridor, and you are in Uganda. On the return leg, you head to the opposite immigration complex, and the process happens in reverse. The same thing happens for Customs clearance. This exercise used to take travellers at least 30 minutes, and sometimes clearing your car could run into an hour! If you don’t have a passport, you also get an interstate pass, which is issued simultaneous by Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. On average, the one-stop posts have cut the time travellers spend at the border by at least 90 per cent. This is truly remarkable, because it was all but impossible to think of an African government acting alone or collectively with others achieving those levels of efficiency. But politically,...

The Beit bridge border between Zimbabwe and SA, the busiest border post in Southern Africa, has been rocked by unprecedented violent protests since June. The protests largely concern the restrictive trade measures unexpectedly introduced by the Zimbabwean government, which included banning the importation of basic commodities like body creams, baked beans and bottled water. While these measures were meant to support the development of domestic industries, they have the potential to do severe harm to the already fragile state of the Zimbabwean economy, characterised by significant unemployment and shortages of basic commodities and cash. The import bans are likely to spur increased informal economic activity, currently estimated to be at 60%, and in particular increase informal cross-border trade. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the informal economy refers to "all economic activities by workers or economic units that are – in law or practice – not covered or sufficiently covered by formal arrangements." This includes legitimately-produced goods and services that do not necessarily follow formal processes such as standards regulations, business registration or operational licenses. It is estimated that the informal economy provides up to 70% of employment in sub-Saharan Africa, providing access to domestic goods and services that are not available through the formal economy, and bringing significant socio-economic benefits for those engaged in such activity. Governments typically disapprove of informal activity as it results in revenue losses, and the difficulty of regulating such activities can have negative effects such as increased criminality. Informal cross-border trade constitutes the...

Kenya is seeking to offset trade imbalance with South Africa by focusing on services where the East African country has a comparative advantage. Industrialisation secretary Adan Mohamed on Tuesday met South Africa's minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies to discuss a framework for engagement before the end of the year. According to the Export Promotion Council, Kenya's imports from South Africa have increased from $287.7 million in 2003 to $ 477.4 million in 2007, a rise of about 66 per cent while exports have been decreasing from $51 million in 2004. This means that the share of Kenya's total exports in the South Africa's global imports has remained below one per cent. During bilateral talks with Mr Davies, Mr Mohamed agreed to hold match making meetings between business delegations from Kenya and South Africa during a state visit later in the year. Mr Davies said South Africa was keen on building trade in services with its African counterparts which it has not explored. "We want to have measurable and tangible progress because countries meet sign frameworks but have very little follow-up activity," he said. The South African minister said the country had come up with Trade Investment African arm to encourage the countries companies to expand trade into the continent. Kenya is also seeking access into the South African market for mainly tea and avocado exports. Mr Davies said this could happen if the countries speed up implementation of the tripartite free trade agreement that would bring together the...

Producing high yield and quality coffee is a challenge for smallholder coffee farmers due to high investment in the production process. In addition, the farmers do not have a strong and sustainable links to potential buyers. These, coupled with rudimentary techniques at coffee washing stations (or wet mills) which affect quality of coffee, affect farmers’ revenue and causes them to be vulnerable to coffee price volatility. To address the problem, Twin is currently implementing a project funded by Trade Mark East Africa (TMA), which aims to increase the capacity of targeted twenty smallholder farmers’ organizations in Rwanda and Burundi. The project supports coffee farmers’ cooperatives to access specialty coffee market. This is achieved through training farmers to improve the quality of their coffee and helping them reach coffee buyers willing to pay better prices. As part of the project, from July 19- 20, 2016, Twin and TMA held a validation workshop on coffee quality control through best practices at wet mills across East Africa. Participants in the workshop included Coffee Board Representatives from East African countries, coffee buyers from USA and Europe and representatives of coffee cooperatives under the project. The function involved coffee cupping sessions carried out from Starbucks laboratory in Kigali, in which both international and national coffee cuppers observed and ranked the taste and aroma of 23 coffee samples from the region. Of the samples tested, 10 were from Rwanda and 10 from Burundi. Bahati Thierry, a coffee farmer and Manager of a coffee washing station for...

In Tanzania, perishable exports are set to receive a boost as cold storage facilities at the Julius Nyerere International Airport, Dar-es-Salaam are being upgraded. The facilities have been modified to meet demands of export of perishable items. The cold room will now allow scanning and screening of perishable items. “According to last year statistics, 44.79 tons of vegetables, 589.13 tons of flowers, 1,331 tons of meat and 67 tons of fish were exported through the Airport,” Swiss-port Tanzania Plc. Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Gaudence Temu, has said Source: Daily Trust

The 14th session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) will today come to an end in Nairobi, Kenya. It is one of the most important events for the global investment community, providing an opportunity and platform to interact trade-wise. The conference brings together Heads of State and Government, ministers and other prominent players from the business world, civil society and academia to tackle global trade and economic development challenges. Among the key issues the meeting tackled is the need to strengthen the evolution and management of globalisation, interdependence of trade, finance, investment and technology, and ways of advancing growth and development prospects, especially for developing countries. One feature during this high-level trade conference is calling off the scheduled signing of Economic Partnership Agreement between East African Community (EAC) and European Union (EU). Members of the EAC were split down the middle, with Uganda reportedly joining Tanzania in pulling out of the pact that would have guaranteed continued access to the European Union market without paying duty. Of course, this arises from the recent Brexit. It stood out that regional trade agreements are too difficult to negotiate, may be for defensive reasons, fear of individual interest being locked out or protection of existing preferential agreements in other areas. Such reservations may ultimately slow down the higher ambitions and results sought by the crucial integration agenda. Trade gains from regional integration are one of the key economic objectives behind the creation of any trading bloc. Turns out that member states’ decision...

JUBA, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Despite once experiencing an oil boom, South Sudan needs to invest more in trade facilitation, production and building access to external markets to create jobs and reduce on imports, experts have observed. Oil exports dominate the economy and government revenue. They generated large revenues of about 20 billion U.S. dollars from 2005 to 2014, equivalent to 98 percent of the annual government budget, but weak governance has meant that these have not been used to invest in building productive capacity. The country's trade surplus is largely a result of its oil exports, and increased from 3.99 million dollars in 2009 to 6.93 million dollars in 2012, reflecting the increase in oil exports. However, since outbreak of the December 2013 conflict and the recent renewed clashes, South Sudan imports have been greater than exports resulting in trade deficit. Oil production plummeted from 350,000 barrels a day to less than 160,000 bpd due to conflict and drop in global oil prices. The undersecretary Ministry of Trade, Industry and Commerce Biel Jock Thich told Xinhua in Juba on Tuesday that the country has for the past three years been having a trade deficit and that it is incumbent upon them to diversify the economy. "For all this time we have a trade deficit because we import everything from outside," he explained. He added that to facilitate trade, they plan to eliminate the persistent Non-Tarrif Barriers (NTBs) despite having joined the East African Community in April and even set...

Nairobi, 21 July: TradeMark Africa (TMA) today hosted the Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, H.E. Lilianne Ploumen at a women and trade fair in Nairobi. The fair showcased work of women beneficiaries from the Dutch funded East African Women and Trade programme. The US$ 4.5 million programme, which was launched in October 2015, aims to reach 25,000 women in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Burundi, by the end of 2017. Among the distinguished guests was the TMA board advisor and former Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Pascal Lamy and TMA Director General David Stanton, among other dignitaries. H.E Ploumen walked around the market, interacting with the women traders listening to their stories of success and sometimes tears. Mariam Babu, the chairperson of Busia Cross Border traders summarized some of the challenges as: a disconnect between border officials and women traders, sexual harassment while plying the trading routes and lack of access to market information. While interacting with the women, Ms Ploumen commented that it was important to support the women in trade as, Women own over 40% of businesses in East Africa and research shows that empowering women to trade is good for the economy, good for society and good for women. Despite the prevalence of women owned SMEs and the growth potential offered by the target sectors, they face significant constraints to their competitiveness and participation in trade. The Women and Trade program which...

A plan to ease congestion at the Mombasa Port has run into a storm over the cost of items put out for auction. Bidders complained that the items were too expensive as most of them returned home empty handed. The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) plans to sell several items, including vehicles, after owners failed to collect their containers. According to KRA, most of the overstayed cargo could have been imported by cartels involved in tax evasion and diversion of transit cargo. This came as it emerged that the biggest chunk of the cargo already auctioned and others awaiting the fall of the hammer, belong to Kenyan and Ugandan importers. According to KRA, it was not normal for businessmen to import goods and then refuse to claim them. About 70 per cent of the goods listed for auction are said to be owned by Kenyan importers while 15 per cent belong to Ugandans and the rest belong to South Sudanese and Rwandans. Hundreds of prospective bidders who had converged at the Mombasa Port Custom Warehouse said the prices were out of reach for them. Mr Stephen Kyalo, a Mombasa-based businessman, said he is frustrated after he was unable to get the items he wanted to buy. "I have spent the last two days running up and down viewing the commodities coming up for sale but prices have put me off. I had even borrowed money to purchase the goods but very expensive," he said. Another trader, Mr Sammy Masila, said KRA...