Britain referundum decision to exit the European Union under the so-called Brexit has no long-term consequences on East African Community, Robert Mathu, the executive director of Capital Market Authority in Rwanda, has said. Before and after the voting, the Pound Sterling continued to lose value compared to the last 30 years. The capital markets in UK also incurred losses and have lost value that has made the future of EU uncertain thus the departure of the UK. Mathu said some of the effects might reach the regions that have an economic relation with Britain and the British investment. “Brexit is a problem for the whole world since the reason as to why most countries come together for economic purposes, is to allow investment and businesses to freely operate in the member countries,” he said. Mathu and other analysists worldwide, confirm that the first worry of the Brexit is capitalist countries will spread the ideas of exit making globalisation a major priority while other countries want to put extra security on the immigrants and control the movement. “It will affect the globalisation and the citizens and investors who have been travelling to the UK will encounter problems. Normally, you would find people traveling to UK and other countries with ease,” Mathu said. He added that Brexit will not affect the payment of the $400 million that Rwanda got on the Eurobond market since it got the loan in Dollar currency and not a Pound currency. EAC remains uncertain Mathu said the...

The reduction of data roaming rates by the Northern Corridor countries will help spur trade, the private sector players have said. Telecom firms operating in Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, and South Sudan implemented a directive by the Heads of State to cut the data roaming rates by July 1 under the One Area Network initiative. The development, where data roaming rates have been cut by up to 80 per cent, means that Rwandans will roam in Uganda, South Sudan and Kenya at much lower charges, local telecom firms have said. Tigo subscribers and roaming visitors on the Tigo network are now browsing at Rwf90/MB down from Rwf440 previously, a development private sector players say will ease business between member states and deepen integration. The rates will apply when the telecom’s subscribers are visiting Uganda or Kenya. Tigo’s local data tariff is Rwf51/MB, while an SMS from Rwanda to Uganda, Kenya or South Sudan is now at Rwf45 per from Rwf75. Voice calls to Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan will cost Rwf68, Rwf60, and 60, down from Rwf128, Rwf256 and Rwf245 respectively. MTN customers roaming in Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan will now browse at Rwf88/MB under a new tariff, down from Rwf408, Teta Mpyisi, the telecom firm’s senior manager for brand and sponsorship, said over the weekend. The Northern Corridor Heads of State summit held in Kampala, Uganda last year directed telecom operators and regulators to fast-track reduction of data charges and review taxes downward, setting July 1 as the implementation...

Kenya moved up 32 places in a World Bank ranking to become the second-most efficient African country in moving goods across borders. According to the latest Logistics Performance Index (LPI), the country is in position 42, up from 74 in what is perhaps the global lender’s approval of the Government’s efforts to improve the ease of doing business. The country comes second to South Africa in the index that ranks logistics in160 countries . Kenya’s LPI score of 3.33 puts it ahead of economies like Russia, Brazil and Argentina. The report attributed this positive performance on “strong political will” and implementation of administration reforms in the region. “Relatively rapid improvements can also be achieved regionally if countries have a strong political will and align their efforts in implementing administrative reform. This is the case, for example, for the Northern Corridor that links Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda with the Port of Mombasa in Kenya, and also serves eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Tanzania,” said the World Bank in the report. Germany was ranked best overall with a score of 4.23, while war-torn Syria sits at the tail-end with a score of 1.60. However, in the World Bank’s East of Doing Business 2016, Kenya’s performance in trade across borders remained unchanged compared to its performance in 2015. Trade agency Trademark East Africa (TMA) has said the modernisation of the Port of Mombasa and creation of One Stop Border Posts at Malaba, Busia and Taveta would reduce...

Windhoek – It may be too early to calculate the potential damage to SADC, and Africa, from the unprecedented earthquake that ripped through the European Union – following the exit of the United Kingdom – and the seismic waves of political and economic uncertainty that are unfolding. Until now the EU has been widely held as the world’s best functioning political economic union model, to which even SADC and other African regional blocs had looked up, as they embark on regional integration. What is becoming clear though is the fact that just like with many US companies who found themselves with no contingency plans for an EU without the UK, the 15 Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states, as well as the rest of Africa, are now scrambling to assess the post-shocks and establish contingency plans. And there are serious implications for SADC and the rest of the continent. To start with, this past week Professor Ian Scoones penned an opinion paper that the European Union (EU) Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with SADC that was inked on 10 June in Kasane, Botswana, has to be renegotiated, especially for SADC countries to eventually have free trade access to the United Kingdom, or Great Britain, that is no longer a member of the                      EU. “Now, all these arrangements have to be renegotiated bilaterally with each of the other 162 World Trade Organisation members. It will be a slow and costly readjustment,...

The hosting of global events is a  vital showcase of a country’s power, stature and influence. In particular, Kenya’s hosting of events such as the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), Annual World Congress of the Africa Travel Association (ATA), World Conference on Public Relations in Emerging Economies (WCPREE), World Trade Organization (WTO) conference has reaffirmed her position as the preferred African country to visit and invest. Leveraging nation branding opportunities through mega events has become a strategy for enhancing nation brands because they attract investments, tourism and trade and Kenya is leading the way in Africa in this regard. Kenya is on course in enhancing foreign trade relations by hosting the 6th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI), a key investment forum that will also boost tourism. This is the first time that the TICAD conference is held on the African soil.  The conference is expected to attract Presidents from numerous African countries and the global leadership of key international development organizations such as International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and United Nations (UN) organizations. In addition to TICAD, World leaders will converge in Nairobi for the 14th  quadrennial conference on the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD 14), which takes place in July 2016. The conference will provide another unique business opportunity for Kenya because it runs concurrently with the World Investment Forum and the Global Commodities Forum. Among other top events include: Water and electricity power Expo, East Africa Oil and gas summit, The 2017 IAAF World Youth...

Despite efforts by Botswana and Kenya geared towards improving trade relations, volumes and value of trade between the two decreased to P5 million in 2015 from P7 million in 2010. In 2010, Kenya exported commodities worth $0.53 million (P5.4 million) to Botswana, which rose to $1.6 million the following year and significantly drifted to a low of $0.46 million in 2012. The highest exports were realised in 2014 at a value of $8.34 million while in 2015 it stood at $4.51 million. Kenya’s imports from Botswana have been fluctuating over the years. In 2010, Kenya imported goods worth $0.29 million and $0.17 million the following year. In 2014, imports were valued at $0.12 million before rising to  $0.19 million in 2015. Speaking during his state visit this week, President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta emphasised on the need for the two countries to work together and revive trade relations between themselves noting that Africans need to work collectively to be able to achieve prosperity of the people and continent as a whole. “I have realised that most of the African countries prefer to export their products outside the continent, but this must stop and we should as a continent start trading amongst ourselves,” saidKenyatta. Botswana and Kenya held the first business forum in Gaborone two years ago that was aimed at improving trade relations between the two nations. This week’s second forum was geared at deepening the already existing relations between the two countries. According to the chairman of Kenya National...

When incomes are strengthened, a country is able to build a new level of class consciousness. We have spent a disproportionate amount of ink on manufacturing, trade and how to increase our exports. This is because we believe there is no medicine against poverty or a more reliable test of the ingredients of a good ideology than a tool which helps people's incomes consistently rise. Trade in particular, throughout history, has proven itself a major tool to achieve this objective. Even on the rank of global issues such as country carbon emissions, quite often used by the West as an argument against developing countries to slow down the manufacturing and trade race, Africa still has plenty of leg room to increase its industry without damaging our planet. For example, there is not a single African country on the top 10 list of polluting nations. China tops the tables at 29.1% followed by the US at 15.1% and the EU at 10.5%. Indonesia is the last on the tables with 1.4% global emissions share. Not any African nation. It means even our opening up of large commercial tracts of land for agriculture (About 600million hectares of land or 60% of the global arable farmland is in Africa) mother planet still stretches out her hands beautifully, allowing us to produce more without harming her. We are not there yet. We can manufacture and trade our way out of poverty, increase our incomes rapidly and hold out for many years to come without...

Today’s indicator figure is 8,481,740,000  8,481,740,000 of what? 8,481,740,000 ($8.5 billion USD) is the total amount in current US dollars that is provided as Official Development Assistance to countries in the East African Community (EAC) in the most recent year reported.  What do you mean by Official Development Assistance? According to the World Bank, Official Development Assistance (ODA) consists of “disbursements of loans made on concessional terms and grants by official agencies of the members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), by multilateral institutions, and by non-DAC countries to promote economic development and welfare in countries and territories in the DAC list of ODA recipients”. In other words this money is grants and low interest rate loans from donor countries and institutions (think UN, World Bank, GIZ in Germany, USAID in the US, African Development Bank, and so on) to less developed countries like those in the EAC. This figure does not include personal or religious charitable donations which would certainly increase the figure of financial support to EAC nations. How does this compare to other regions of the world? In the history of ODA tracking, the most a single country ever received was Iraq in 2005 taking in $22.0 billion USD with the next highest being Nigeria in 2006 with $11.4 billion USD in support. Beyond that, recent years show that Sub-Saharan African countries receive the most aid assistance of any region and three EAC countries, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda were listed as the top ten recipients of foreign aid...

We would like to take this opportunity to welcome the two governments’ initiatives to cement bilateral cooperation on various fields, including revenue collection and cargo handling, among others. Tanzanians have attached great importance to President Kagame’s visit as it continues taking the two countries to new heights of bilateral cooperation. We, therefore, would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the two leaders for this landmark decision in which the two countries will move to another level of cooperation by incorporating centralised revenue collection system, opening up the Tanzania Port Authority (TPA) to Rwanda and establishment of Rwanda Inland Container Depot (ICD) in Dar es Salaam. In a world that has recently been hit by the Brexit effects, which have sent some of the world’s economies tumbling following UK referendum, in which people voted to leave the European Union, it is heartening to see that unity remains to be the East African spirit. This spirit of cooperation has set high standard bar in the region. While some economies as we have seen recently, have faced some challenges, compelling them to think of disintegration or even conducting referendum to the effect, the two leaders have been exemplary by demonstration to the world that countries can go far if they remain united. We would like to echo what President John Magufuli said when welcoming President Kagame that the latter advised him on the need to establish a single revenue collection centre that will be handling and keeping track of all government’s earnings....

East African countries have been asked to reject the impending trade deal with the European Union. Kenya and the four other nations of the EAC are required to ratify the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) before the end of the month, gradually grating unlimited market access for exports from the EU. While Kenya reluctantly signed the accord in 2014, the agreement, which the civil society and the United Nations have cited as dangerous, is yet to be approved by Parliament. “We must critically analyse what this agreement means for the EAC, it is dangerous for our trade,” said Nathan Irumba, the executive director of the Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (Seatini). He was speaking at the close of a trade conference seeking to examine the impact of the EPA on the East African countries. EAC has been negotiating with the EU as a trading bloc. Failure to sign up would mean steep taxes on commodities such as flowers produced in Kenya, which is classified as a lower-middle-income economy. Kenyan flower exports were heavily impacted when the EU slapped heavy taxes of up to 12 per cent some two years ago after the lapse of the preceding agreement, forcing President Uhuru Kenyatta to sign the agreement. Other EAC nations are classified as Least Developed Countries and would still qualify for preferential treatment in trading with the rest of the richer World. The impending exit of the United Kingdom from the EU, commonly cited as Brexit, has already reduced...