On a sweltering Kenyan morning on the outskirts of a national wildlife park, Chinese and local workers maneuver a massive concrete rail-bridge structure onto towering support piers. In the distance, trucks loaded with shipping containers rumble down a highway. The bridge at Voi, northwest of the port of Mombasa, is the latest construction frontline for the initial 327 billion-shilling ($3.2 billion) stretch of an ambitious railway project to link the East African country with landlocked neighbors including Rwanda and Uganda. As a faster alternative to the trucks clogging the only road running inland to the capital, the Chinese-built and -financed standard-gauge railway, known as the SGR, has the potential to transform trade in the region. A wagon carries railway sleepers on a superbridge which will form part of the railway A wagon carries railway sleepers on a superbridge which will form part of the railway Photographer: Riccardo Gangale/Bloomberg Kenya’s rail line, the country’s biggest investment since independence in 1963, is among the most advanced of the more than $30 billion of African rail projects planned or under way. Together, they span more than 11,000 kilometers (6,835 miles), enough to connect Cape Town to Copenhagen. It’s one of the bright spots on the world’s least developed continent, where governments are wrestling with drought-induced food shortages, weakened currencies and shrinking budgets following the plunge in commodity prices. Held Back “Infrastructure constraints are one of the major things holding back Africa and this standard-gauge railway will make a big difference,” said Mark Bohlund,...

Members of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) have embarked on a sensitization and outreach drive across member states over the role of each stakeholder in the integration process. The team responsible for mobilizing Uganda says the move is to enhance mutual relations between the East African Community (EAC) and populations of partner states. The EALA is an organ of the EAC established under Article 9 of the treaty for the establishment of the Community. "Attainment of the EAC integration agenda can only be first tracked when we have all our people on board, so it is important that we mobilize them. Most of them especially at the grassroots don't know how to do cross border trade which is a very crucial aspect of the process," Chris Opoka the team leader of the sensitization program told journalists yesterday. ast frican egislative ssembly members ora yamukama and ike sebalu addressing the media during a press rief at the media center East African Legislative Assembly members Dora Byamukama and Mike Ssebalu addressing the media during a press Brief at the media center The program organized under the theme, 'EAC integration Agenda: Accessing the gains' came after a rallying call by the EAC Heads of States, that EALA members should sensitize the population on the integration process and its benefits. Opoka says, "It is more like an assignment from the summit after the heads realized that their citizens were not averse with the issues at hand and the milestones so far made." He...

Lately, there has been a growing number of Danish companies doing business in Kenya - from patrons enjoying Danish beer Carlsberg, shipping firm Maersk delivering cargo to port of Mombasa and Vestas supplying towering turbines to Lake Turkana Wind Power project. The Business Daily spoke to Danish ambassador to Kenya Mette Knudsen on the trade and cultural relations between the two countries. How do Danish people and businesspersons view Kenya? Kenya has the closest ties to Denmark. This is because of Karen Blixen – all Danes know about her. Therefore, there’s affinity between Kenya and Denmark. Kenya is a vibrant place. The business sector is one of the most dynamic in Africa. A lot of Danish companies and investors are certainly interested in this market. There has been high growth rates, increased investments in infrastructure, good information technology uptake, highly educated population and an entrepreneurial spirit. The Kenyan market gets even more important when it is seen as a part of a bigger bloc and gateway to East African Community. Since 2011 when the embassy opened the Trade Council in Kenya, which Danish companies have entered the market or increased investment? There are more than 50 Danish companies which are engaged in Kenya. A lot of our largest companies are active here. Maersk Group, specifically the shipping line business, is responsible for a large portion of the trade at the port of Mombasa. Maersk entered Kenya in 1994 and has an office in Mombasa and Nairobi, and also offers shipping...

An East African summit for formal retail operators on Thursday called for adoption of e-commerce to avert an ‘Uber’ effect on their businesses. Speaking at Villa Rosa Kempinski Hotel in Nairobi, Uchumi Supermarket chief executive Julius Kipng’etich and Nakumatt’s regional strategy and operations director, Mr Ramamurthy Thiagarajan, said operators must closely monitor consumer preferences to guide their future engagements with their clients. “To say you have 30 years experience in running a supermarket could be the fatal pill for your business since now we have tablets, the Internet and mobile phones that are used to communicate and also make payments,” said Mr Kipng’etich. Mr Thiagarajan said Nakumatt had made major inroads in studying customer trends, where it realised that 67 per cent of its clients were repeat shoppers who enjoy patronising specific stores and purchasing certain items. “This has helped us sell ourselves as a brand aggressively across our branches in East Africa - Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda, since people believe we will always have what they are looking for,” he told the gathering. EMERGING TRENDS The summit, convened to look into emerging trends in East Africa, heard that online stores were fast moving into the region where young shoppers prefer to go on the web and compare prices before placing orders for the select items. Retail Traders Association of Kenya chief executive Wambui Mbarire called on retailers to join the association to enhance their bargaining power on policy and taxation issues, adding that the sector had emerged as...

The presidents of Rwanda and Tanzania have pledged to strengthen the two countries’ relations to enable their citizens to work together for shared benefits and development. The leaders made the commitment yesterday at the two countries’ border at Rusumo, where Rwandan President Paul Kagame welcomed his Tanzanian counterpart, John Pombe Magufuli, for a two-day working visit. At the border, the two leaders inaugurated the newly-constructed Rusumo International Bridge and a one-stop border post between Rwanda and Tanzania, which brings customs and immigration officers from both countries under one roof. The leaders urged Rwandans and Tanzanians to actively use the border for their business and visits to each other, encouraging them to build stronger relationships that are crucial for mutual interests. “We want trade to increase because that will be to the benefit of both the people of Rwanda and the people of Tanzania,” President Kagame said, adding that cooperation based on peace has potential to transform the two nations. Speaking to both Rwandan and Tanzanian citizens and dignitaries gathered on the Rwandan side of the Rusumo border, President Magufuli pledged stronger cooperation: “Tanzania will cooperate very well with Rwanda. I would like to ask businesspeople in both countries of Rwanda and Tanzania and citizens from the entire EAC (East African Community) to work together and build our unity. I trust that we can build our countries’ economies by working together,” Magufuli said in a short speech. He thanked President Kagame for inviting him to visit Rwanda and described him as...

ADDIS ABABA - In a bid to show solidarity and promote free movement of Africans within their region and other parts of the continent, African heads of states are to carry an African passport for the next African Union Summit to be hosted in Kigali, Rwanda, in July. The heads of states will receive the African passport since the AU wants to popularise it as it is very symbolic and significant for the continent, as well as practical, because if one is carrying an African passport he/she should not be expected to apply for a visa, according to Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union Commission. “A few of us at the AU are already using that passport within Africa and it is very useful, but we want the heads of states to carry it when they are visiting African countries to make it official and known to others as well,” she said. Africa’s attempt to address this situation has seen free movement show up in continental development strategy documents since the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action and the 1991 Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community (AEC), commonly known as the Abuja Treaty. Abuja committed African states to “adopt, individually, at bilateral or regional levels, the necessary measures in order to achieve progressively the free movement of persons, and to ensure the enjoyment of the right of residence and the right of establishment by their nationals within the community”” The chairperson also said that all African countries must give...

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is ranked third in regional integration out of eight regional economic communities assessed by the Africa Regional Integration Index – Africa’s first effort to measure progress on regional integration. The Africa Regional Integration Index Report launched recently in Addis Ababa, is the result of a collaboration between the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the African Union Commission (AUC); and follows calls for systematic measurement of regional integration. On a scale of 0 to 1, ECOWAS came third with a score of 0.509, behind the Southern African Development Community (SADC) which scored 0.531, and the East African Community (EAC) which came first with a score of 0.540. The Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) came fourth with 0.459, followed by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in the horn and its western area, with 0.457; and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) in sixth, scoring 0.454. The joint research also examined integration in two wider regional blocs: the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), which cuts across North-Eastern, East, Central and Southern Africa, and includes some member countries of the UMA, IGAD, ECCAS and SADC; and the Community of Sahel Saharan States (CEN-SAD) made up of ECOWAS and some North, Central and East African states (from UMA, ECCAS and IGAD). COMESA scored 0.415 and CEN-SAD, 0.395. Regional integration in the report was measured using 16 indicators in five dimensions: trade integration, productive integration, free...

The African Union Commission (AUC) and the European Commission will hold their annual College-to-College meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 7 April. This is the biggest political EU-Africa meeting of the year. The Africa-EU Strategic Partnership is the formal channel through which the European Union and the African continent work together. It is enshrined in the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES): a partnership of equals, determined to tackle together issues of common concern. Adopted by Heads of State and Government at the second EU-Africa Summit in 2007, the JAES is the first and only intercontinental partnership strategy of the EU. The current Roadmap 2014-2017 sets out concrete targets within five priority areas of cooperation agreed at the 4th EU-Africa Summit in 2014: Peace and Security Democracy, Good Governance and Human Rights Human Development Sustainable and Inclusive Developmental Growth and Continental Integration Global and Emerging Issues EU-Africa Relations Several cooperation frameworks govern EU cooperation with Africa, among which (i) the Cotonou Agreement with Sub-Saharan Africa, (ii) Euro-med Partnership with North Africa and the European neighbourhood policy, (iii) and the Joint Africa-EU Strategy. These frameworks include political, economic and development aspects. Africa is the main recipient of collective EU (EU and its 28 Member States) Official Development Assistance (ODA). Approximately €141 billion were allocated between 2007–2013. The EU's development cooperation with Africa is channelled through different financial instruments, of which the European Development Fund (EDF) is the most important. Between 2014-2020, total European Commission's ODA allocations for Africa will amount to over €31...

The UK government will increase support for local infrastructure projects so that more British firms clinch lucrative deals in planned and ongoing constructions. British High Commissioner to Kenya Nic Hailey yesterday said his country is banking on a Sh74 billion fund set aside by export credit agency, UK Export Finance, to jump-start its renewed investment efforts in Kenya. The kitty will be set up under a Memorandum of Understanding to be signed in the “next few weeks”, he said. The fund will be used to provide loans for UK firms to boost their ability to export to Kenya. “Both countries have agreed on the MoU and we expect to sign it anytime depending on availability of Kenya’s ministers and government officials,” Hailey said. Hailey was speaking after the signing of a partnership between the UK Export Finance and the African Trade Insurance agency yesterday. ATI will offer UK exporters enhanced access to growing markets in Kenya and the East Africa. As an ATI member, UKEF will get updates on new business opportunities for exporters, as well as local knowledge of firms and projects. The move, Hailey said, will boost the UK government efforts in encouraging more UK businesses to trade with African countries. Sectors targeted by UK firms in Kenya include infrastructure, advanced engineering, energy, ICT and defence, and security. “British companies are eyeing major projects such as roads, pipeline, renewable energy and port, so we are keen in increasing investments and trade with Kenya,” Hailey said. ATI chief executive...

Kenya is fast cementing its reputation for remarkable economic growth. With GDP growth averaging well above 5% for the 12 months to September 2015, impressive improvements in government finances, and falls in oil prices significantly reducing its imports bill, the future is bright for Kenya. The East African Community (EAC) as a whole is emerging as a beacon for trade. It contains fast-developing economies, and last year’s introduction of a single customs territory is already benefiting cross-border commerce. Foreign investment into sub-Saharan Africa grew last year, notably from diaspora communities, and Barclays’ Africa Trade Index identified East Africa as the trade hub to watch. With favourable economic conditions comes an expanding domestic market; and entrepreneurs are increasingly stepping up to meet this demand. The region’s growing reputation for entrepreneurship goes hand-in-hand with its ambitions for infrastructure development. Any entrepreneur will rely on digital, energy, and transport infrastructures. The World Bank estimates the impact of Africa’s infrastructure gap on productivity as 40%, leading to a 2% drop in growth. Fast-growing economies like Kenya’s require infrastructure that keeps pace with business growth. The UK is a global leader in many of the sectors for which Kenya has greatest demand: infrastructure, advanced engineering, energy, ICT and defence and security. In these and other specialist areas, UK expertise can help accelerate Kenya’s development and economic growth. Increasingly, financing and risk insurance for large-scale infrastructure projects across the world come from international export credit agencies. For example, loans used to fund projects may be guaranteed...