Kenya Ports Authority has warned shippers who transport commodities that are non-compliant with Kenyan standards that it will not clear discharge the cargo. In a public notice, KPA said all imports destined for Kenya through the port of Mombasa must be accompanied with a certificate of conformity that meets Kenya's pre-export verification conditions. It said any non-compliant goods arriving at the port will be detained and taken through further inspections with their importers subject to penalties for flouting the law. “Where post verification is undertaken for the non-compliant cargo, full verification charges shall apply as per KPA tariff,” reads the notice, signed by Gichiri Ndua, managing director of Kenya Ports Authority. Among imports not included in this new arrangement are goods already regulated by other government agencies such as Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate, Pest Control and Products Board, and Pharmacy and Poisons Board. Other imports not subject to the new requirements are products that are certified under the diamond mark scheme by Kebs, printed matter including textbooks and magazines, courier shipments through Jomo Kenyatta International Airport which are cleared under memorandum of understanding between Kebs and players in the courier industry and primary inputs for direct use in manufacturing. Source: The Star

Kenya and Nigeria have, over the last few years, signed several agreements of cooperation, the expectation is that Nigeria's President Buhari’s visit to the East African country will create momentum for implementing this deals. The Nigerian president’s three-day visit is to pay tribute to the fallen heroes killed by Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia, he and President Uhuru Kenyatta will also attend bilateral talks and co-host th Business Forum in Nairobi. "I think the agreements that were signed, several articles of cooperation between Kenya and Nigeria during President Johnathan's time in Nigeria were really to enhance the trade between the African countries and currently Kenya exports about 24 million dollars to Nigeria and imports about 6 million, so I expect that number to increase,” said James Obimbo, Corporate Finance Analyst at Genghis Capital. Obimbo believes this will also allow for the diversification of both countries in terms of the trade for commodities and also with immigration. "They really need to come to an agreement of making trade a lot easier, loosening the trade barriers for example so that makes it easier to export even more and both countries can really diversify their export markets,” said Obimbo. Obimbo also agreed that Kenya needs to cut down on the long process one has to go through to start a business in order to encourage more entrepreneurship in the country. "It really [needs to] cut down the long bureaucracy currently, where sometimes businesses would like to set up but they have to go to...

Maritime consultancy Dynamar has launched a review of container trades in the region of East and Southern Africa. According to this, the area has produced a significant growth, despite challenging conditions in many ports, in terms of infrastructure and other various bottlenecks, mainly associated with inland transportation. They explain more below. In the minds of many, East and Southern Africa including the Indian Ocean islands form an insignificant trade area. That may be true if comparing it with high volume areas such as the Far East. Yet, this region’s combined port throughput approaches 8m teu, technically more than the whole of the Australasian continent. And then, there is more scope for growth. Imagine that the East and Southern Africa container trades caught up in one year’s time with that of the USA with its population of 323m. In that case, the relevant African container volume would grow to 42m teu, up 1,200% from the 3.2m teu of 2014. A period of 25 years may be more realistic which would then translate into a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 11%! That may be a bit exaggerated, but combined East and Southern Africa including the Indian Ocean Islands have seen full container volumes growing by a CAGR of over 9% since 2010. This backed up by the value of their merchandise trade expanding by more than 26% to US$385bn over the same period. Preparing for a buoyant future, many ports in the region are ramping up both their marine facilities...

The Government has stepped up efforts to link local traders to regional markets to boost exports. Amb. Valentine Rugwabiza, the minister for East African Community affairs, said government seeks to facilitate traders to get a fair market share of the growing trade in the region. This, according to the minister, would be achieved through facilitating easy access of traders to the sea ports and ensuring more traders are linked to the regional markets to allow them to optimise on the increasing regional trade and contribute to a more sustained economic growth. "Reducing the time and costs to exporters and importers is not only of paramount importance to Rwanda's increased regional integration and trade facilitation, but also critical for a more sustained economic growth," Rugwabiza said. The minister was speaking during the fifth breakfast meeting between the Ministry of East African Community Affairs and the private sector in Kigali yesterday. Currently, government is working with its partners in the region to further reduce the cost of doing business and ensure all non-tariff barriers (NTBs) are eliminated. This is necessary to balance the country's external trade books. For example, Rwanda recorded a 0.3 per cent trade deficit over the third quarter of last year, spending $481.1 million (about Rwf370 billion) on imports compared to $96.14 million (about Rwf74 billion) earned from exports. Overall, total exports decreased by 26.07 per cent during the period. In this regard, linking more traders to regional markets makes sense as it would help boost the country's exports...

LAST June, 26 African countries signed the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) agreement that, when implemented, will constitute about half of Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP), half its population and cover a combined land mass of 17-million square kilometres — about the size of Russia. The countries, with a combined GDP of about $1.3-trillion and a population of 565-million, will merge into a common market and eliminate tariff lines and trade barriers. They will benefit from liberalised intraregional trade, which is expected to boost the flow of goods and services. Today, however, only three of Africa’s eight regional economic communities are participating in the TFTA. Nonparticipating economic blocs include the Arab Maghreb Union, the Economic Community of West African States, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the Economic Community of Central African States and the Community of Sahel-Saharan States. The Abuja Treaty of 1995, signed by 51 African countries, mandates all regional economic communities to join the group by 2017 in anticipation of an African Economic Community by 2028. "The conditions (to form the TFTA) have never been better," says Sindiso Ndema Ngwenya, the secretary-general of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa). "We have improved governance, and the very fact that we withstood the global financial crisis of 2008 attests to sound macroeconomic policies. This is what is giving us resilience." The benefits of the free trade area are numerous. "It has the potential to increase economies of scale through integration, will increase demand for the region’s goods...

East African single tourist visa has been hailed as the most progressive visa regulation in Africa, But Uganda’s tourist minister has raised a red flag over what she terms as other countries signed to the treaty not honoring the agreement fully. According to The Observer, Maria Mutagamba said the number of tourists visiting the landlocked country have dropped since the single East African tourist visa system was introduced because Kenya and Rwanda are still using their local tourist visa. “We embraced it wholeheartedly, but our brothers and sisters in the two countries while they introduced the East African visa, they also maintained their local tourist visa,” Matagamba said, adding that Uganda was planning to reintroduce its local tourist visa too. Under the tripartite agreement know as “Coalition of Willing”, the three countries were supposed to stop issuing local tourists visas and adopt the $100 multi-entry visa that would allow tourists to access the three East African countries within 90 days using one visa. Tanzania and Burundi, which are also member of the East African Community did not join the other three. “The tourism sector is agitated. They say; ‘we must have our own tourism visa as Uganda’ so that we can also get our tourists coming here directly until we all agree that we are going to have one (tourist visa),” Matagamba said. There were worries that Uganda would not benefit from the Schengen visa-like agreement since Kenya and Rwanda normally attract more tourists. “For us (Uganda) to benefit from...

The Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS), a public institution in charge of undertaking measures for quality controls on imports and promoting standardization in industry and commerce, has recently started a campaign to dismiss all sub-standard products that are outstanding in the local market. The announcement was done by TBS Director General Joseph Masikitiko, whom explained that the government is closely working with local authorities to seize all products that don’t meet the country’s standards. Used rubber tires are among the main sub-standard products imported by Tanzania and it is proved that they are one of the main factors of motor accidents in the country, reason why the TBS will specially focus on foreign shipments to analyse them before they enter the market, Mr. Masikitiko added. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tanzania has become one of the main importers of used rubber tires in Africa ranking in the 11th position totaling USD 4.69 million in 2013 up from USD 0.91 million in 2008. In addition, petroleum products will be also strongly surveilled since in December, 2015, the TBS rejected 38,000 metric tonnes of gasoline sub-standard product, reason why the shipment was sent back to United Arab Emirates (UAE) from Dar es Salaam port due to unacceptable elements found in the analysis, stressed Mr. Masikitiko. Petroleum Products constitute the main group of imports to Tanzania accounting for 36.15% of the country’s total imports and 93.4% of mineral imports in 2013 according to the MIT. Companies importing petroleum products that...

In the current global world, countries future and fate is intermingled. Positive developments in one country spill over to other parts. Similarly, negative phenomena that occurs by natural event or by human activity in a given country, could have repercussion on other parts of the world. Today global warming and climate change, poverty eradication and trade relation has brought countries together for good outcome. On the other hand, terrorism, extremism and security threats alert countries to spend their meagre resources for the well-being of their citizens, that can be allocated for development. However, we can safely argue that for most developing countries, eradication of ignorance, poverty, diseases, expansion of infrastructure, health and social service, enhancing food production and fighting hanger are common priority areas. In order to achieve development, first, countries should sort out what kind of resources they have at hand, how they could tap natural resources and mobilize domestic and international finance and technology. They as well could ultimately identify the type of energy their development scheme could be supported with. Here energy is both a means and an end for their development. Because, all economic sectors such as agriculture, industry and service essentially need energy. Without utilizing it, growth is unthinkable. On the other hand, energy makes a country economic powerful. By supplying energy, besides gaining hard currency, some countries, could be politically influential. Over the past decade, energy was proved to be a source of conflict at the international level. In contrary, countries suffering from energy...

A shippers lobby has taken the government to court over a new rule that bestows on the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) the sole mandate of determining which freight containers would be held at the various container freight stations (CFSs) awaiting shipment. The Container Freight Station Association (CFSA) filed an injunction on January 22, claiming its members were not consulted on the plans. “Shippers have basic rights of operation and where to put their cargo is one of them. This directive seizes rights of importers,” Daniel Nzeki, the chief executive at CFSA said. Currently, importers and exporters are free to nominate their preferred CFSs prior to submission of import manifest to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA). Cargo not nominated by shippers is nominated by KPA and shipping agents are not mandated to nominate containerised cargo to CFSs. This arrangement is likely to change as the government hands powers to KPA to route cargo consignments to CFSs of its choice. “The KYOTO convention which Kenya is a signatory gives all authority in regard to cargo on the importer; the importer, therefore, decides the final clearance point of cargo,” William Ojonyo, managing director of Keynote Logistics said. International trade “It is, therefore, both illegal and uncalled to purport to give direction on an area whose jurisdiction lies with the importer in the international trade contract,” he added. The Treasury’s controversial directive aimed at curbing revenue leaks at such facilities was initially scheduled to kick off on December 1 but industry players petitioned Treasury...

“We are excited by this opportunity to use our expertise to build best-in-class infrastructure to ensure the continued development and growth for Kigali and the wider economy” Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, chairman of DP World said. The total cost of the project is anticipated to be around $35 million (Sh3.6 billion), with further development to be phased in line with demand growth. DP World, the Dubai-owned port operator, recently took up concession deals in eastern and southern Africa. DP World has a concession to run Djibouti’s Doraleh container terminal which is Africa’s largest. The firm also has a similar deal at the port of Maputo in Mozambique which serves as the main shipping terminus for land-locked regions of southern Africa such as Gauteng Province, Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi. The company is also bidding for the concession deal for the second container terminal at the Mombasa port. “We are definitely interested in Lamu because of the prime location. If an opportunity comes to bid for the concession of the Lamu port we shall put in a request. “Meanwhile we are hoping all goes well with our concession bid for the second container terminal in Mombasa,” Sultan Ahmed further told Shipping & Logistics in October at the firm’s head office in Dubai. Maritime trade in eastern and southern Africa has particularly registered good growth, buoyed by booming construction sectors and discoveries of large mineral and gas deposits. The growth in global sea trade has partly been fuelled by a recent drop...