Dar es Salaam, 31st March 2022: Today, the Central Corridor Transit Transport Facilitation Agency (CCTTFA), launched the Central Corridor Transport Observatory (CCTO), a system that provides reliable and timely information to policy makers in the region, facilitating formulation of policies that lead to better transit, trade facilitation and cooperation between CCTTFA Member States. The systems was developed by CCTTFA with support from TradeMark Africa (TMA) and funding from Denmark, Ireland, Norway, UKAID and USAID. The Central Corridor Transport Observatory (CCTO) aims at assessing the efficiency of the logistics chain along the Central Corridor and in turn making all this information available the click of a button. Users will now be able to access information on more than thirty-eight indicators grouped into six categories including: Volumes of transactions, Transit times, Cost of Services, Efficiency and Productivity, Green House Gas emissions and Safety. The Observatory provides access to special features the performance of the Corridor to include joint reports with Northern Corridor Transit and Transport Coordination Authority and Green House Gas emission updates. Also available is a Geographic Information System (GIS) module that allows users to view the location and status of various infrastructure. The event was graced by Mr. Mohamed Salum, Director of Legal Services, Ministry of Transport Tanzania, who represented the Permanent Secretary Mr. Gabriel Migire, CCTTFA Executive Director Capt. Dieudonne Dukundane, and TMA Tanzania Country Director Monica Hangi. Speaking at the event, Executive Director of CCTTFA Capt. Dieudonne Dukundane acknowledged the technical and financial support from TMA that has...

After two years of physical disconnect, the moving parts of the African ecosystem have the opportunity to come together at GTR Africa. A great opportunity to connect and network – but how can we ensure synergies to implement solutions between these parts when we all go home after the event? It has never been more necessary to have the discussion of how, than now! The World Bank predicts that the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will boost regional income by $450bn by the year 2035 and lift 30 million people out of poverty. This environment should be a game-changer for entrepreneurs on the African continent but there are some very real questions about whether the ecosystem for entrepreneurs is primed for this growth. As an organisation that is positioning itself as the leading Pan-African banking group on the continent, we enjoy some unique insights into the ecosystem on the continent and we see critical challenges which need to be addressed before we can capture the projected growth. Let’s have a look at where we are now, before addressing how we can move forward. FRICTIONLESS COMMERCE While the Fintech eco-system has been the recipient of some significant investment and we have seen significant transactions concluded in places like Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. African-focused entrepreneurs have voiced a key concern in relation to the alignment gaps which exist between the physical and financial “supply-chains”. Consider the textile manufacturing market and trade between Ethiopia and South Africa. These supply chains need...

As stated by President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi A. Adesina, “trade finance is an important instrument for influencing Africa’s long-term economic development and structural transformation”. According to a report by the AfBB and the African Export-Import Bank (Afrexim), Trade Finance in Africa: Trends Over the Past Decade and Opportunities Ahead, the region was one of the most integrated with the rest of the world in 2011. However, in the last decade, Africa’s trade growth has been one of the worst among the major regions of the world. This is as a result of a number of factors including falling commodity prices, competition, inadequate foreign exchange liquidity, regulatory challenges and access to trade finance, as banks have gradually been scaling back activities from riskier markets. The study showed that although trade finance remains a popular activity among banks in Africa, the participation rates continue to decrease, falling by 16% between 2013 and 2019. As a result, the trade finance gap in Africa averaged USD 91 billion for the period between 2011 to 2019. Furthermore, the trade uncertainty in Africa was exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in a twin supply-demand shock across the continent. Supply was affected by mass production shutdowns and supply chain blockages and demand for products from Africa decreased globally. Despite the persistently large trade finance gap, trade remains a key driver of Africa’s social and economic development. As a result, banks such as the AfDB and Afrexim have sought to stay on top of market developments...

The African Development Bank (AfDB), which sets its primary tasks of contributing to the continent’s economic and social development by providing the necessary concessional funding for projects and programmes, as well as offering and coordinating assistance in capacity-building activities, has now embarked on various post-COVID-19 initiatives throughout the continent, especially in the least developed African countries. In the latest was the mid-March event where potential investors have examined more than $50 billion of curated bankable projects in key priority sectors identified in the Africa Investment Forum’s 2020 Unified Response to COVID-19 initiative. The sectors include agriculture and agro-processing; education; energy and climate; healthcare; minerals and mining; information and communications technology and telecommunication; and industrialization and trade. Nine of these projects are women-led, with a potential value of $5 billion. The AfDB has secured $32.8 billion in investment commitments for projects in Africa. The largest deal secured at the three-day Africa Investment Forum was $15.6 billion for the Lagos-Abidjan mega highway of about 1,200 km (745 miles) will have four to six lanes, connecting West Africa’s two major cities in Nigeria and Ivory Coast, said AfDB President, Mr Akinwumi Adesina. “Africa is a very bankable continent. We’ve gone through hard times because of the Covid-19 situation but here we are on a rebound,” said Adesina. “Africa is back for investments.” The projects, part of the bank’s Covid-19 response, touch on sectors including agriculture and agro-processing, education, energy and climate, healthcare, minerals and mining, and information and communications technology. Adesina said that...

If the world is to achieve the 2030 development goals, African countries must institute government-backed efforts to switch to the sustainable Circular Economy model of production/consumption. The circular economy is a model of sustainable production and consumption that shifts economic growth from resource consumption to more sustainable approaches. For example, the Circular economy demands designing products for longer use and ease of repair rather than consumption, a profit-oriented approach that produces short life products to force resell. Economy experts describe the circular economy model as a new paradigm for business that aims to achieve economic growth through new sustainable business models. There are various factors that influence the transition to the circular economy including market awareness, behaviour change, greater access to data and regularization of informal activities. For the circular economy to work, it requires rational practices by all parties of any given product value chains, from producers all the way to the consumer, all are responsible. In this regard, multinational companies (MNCs) are key because they have long value chains including their suppliers, consumers, and even financial and government institutions. To meet global circularity goals, as articulated in Sustainable Goal Number 12 'Responsible Production and Consumption,' circular economy principles require extremely close cooperation between the MNCs and Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) suppliers who are mostly in developing countries. However, the trouble is that SMEs are reluctant to switch from Linear economy models because they are profitable in the short run. To ensure this noble goal is met, there...

The East African Business Council (EABC) is pushing for a review of the EAC protocols to transform the EAC Secretariat from a coordinating body to an enforcement agency, to make the entity more relevant. This is because many resolutions are made at different levels of the community up to the heads of states summit, but only the willing partner states implement them, while those violating the resolutions cannot be forced or penalized. This is evident in the failure by the EAC to fully implement the harmonization of tax policies, as well as the persistence of non-tariff barriers, because countries put national policies before the demands of regional integration. These have also seen outright confrontation between countries with some unilaterally closing their borders to neighbours. This is part of the demands the region’s private sector wants handled by the next Heads of States Summit. John Bosco Rusagara, the EABC Board Director recommended for the institutional review of the functions of the EAC Secretariat via elevating its role from coordination to enforcement by transforming the EAC Secretariat into a Commission. The business leaders also condemned the government in the region for doing little to cut the cost of doing business. “EAC Partner States should fully operationalize the EAC Single Customs Territory and adopt technology to transform our EAC region to be borderless for goods and services! The Partner States should work towards to bringing down East African borders for trade to flourish,” said EABC Chairman Nicholas Nesbitt. Speaking at a dialogue on...

7TH PIDA WEEK: Implement SAATM agreement to lower cost African leaders have been urged to urgently implement the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) agreement, in order to lower the costs of air transport in Africa and in turn boost development. Speaking in Nairobi, Kenya, at the 7th Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) week, EAC Secretary General Dr Peter Mathuki stated that air cargo currently accounts for only 2% of the global air cargo adding that air transport remains out of reach for both passenger and cargo haulage due to high associated costs. “These costs can be brought down if we have political commitment to implement the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) agreement,” he noted. The Secretary-General noted that the region continues to ramp up investments in infrastructure to narrow the infrastructure gap and enhance intermodal connectivity. “These investments have yielded impressive results; for instance, the transit time from Mombasa to Kampala has improved from 20 days in 2010 to an average of 6 days in 2021, with a resultant cost reduction from US$3,500 in 2010 to US$2,200 in 2021,” he noted. The Secretary-General hailed African leaders for prioritizing investment in One-Stop Border Posts (OSBPs), which have facilitated transboundary trade by enhancing border crossing efficiency. “The use of technology at OSBPs has improved sharing and exchange of information among agencies, enhanced border security, reduced processing times at the border transit times for traders and transporters, and enhanced the reliability of the supply chain through streamlined and harmonised...

LAPSSET key in Africa’s Integration Agenda The Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor Program and free trade agreements have immensely contributed to the African integration agenda by bringing opportunities closer and reducing regional tensions. The remark was made by Silvester Kasuku, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), of the African Center for Transport, Infrastructure and Regional Integration (ACTIRI) and former CEO of LAPSSET Authority, in Nairobi on Tuesday during the sideline of the 7th Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa, (PIDA) Week under the theme "The investment potentials of the LAPSSET Land Bridge to Central Africa and beyond. The LAPSSET Corridor Program is a regional flagship project intended to provide transport and logistics infrastructure aimed at creating seamless connectivity between the Eastern African Countries of Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan. The project connects a population of 160 million people in the three countries and is part of the larger land bridge that will connect the East African coast from Lamu Port to the West coast of Africa at Douala Port. According to Kasuku infrastructure projects like the LAPSSET corridor project which is Eastern Africa’s largest and most ambitious infrastructure project is key not only for Kenya, but the whole region as a whole. He added that the project forges linkages that strengthen East Africa’s regional integration thus creating the new basis needed for economic growth. While emphasising the project’s unique importance, he said the road has improved connectedness between Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan thus generating positive economic synergy between the three...

The Government of Kenya has lifted the mandatory presentation of negative Covid-19 results requirement for its heavy goods truck drivers and appealed to the EAC partner states to follow suit. The resolution was communicated by Kenya Transport Association to its members after the Kenyan cabinet meeting on Friday, a development which was warmly welcomed by East African transport companies and drivers. “To the EAC secretariat, the ministers of health- Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, South Sudan and Tanzania, we thank the government of Kenya for removing the mandatory requirement of negative Covid-19 test results for fully vaccinated truck drivers entering Kenya,” reads part of the statement by KTA to its members. According to KTA, the government of Kenya has given its reasons for removing this requirement and believes that the basic parameters observed in Kenya in relation to the current Covid-19 pandemic situation are being replicated in the East African community region. Mr Newton Wang’oo’, the chairman of the transport association of Kenya welcomed the lift pointing out that the EAC governments have always worked with harmonised Covid-19 protocols to facilitate uniform requirements when drivers cross the borders to deliver essential goods in the region. “We therefore, respectively ask the EAC countries to vacate the mandatory requirement to present a negative Covid-19 test result for all fully vaccinated truck drivers crossing all borders in the EAC region,” he said Reports indicate that a total of 42,344 trucks crossed into Uganda from Kenya and 37, 769 trucks crossed into Kenya from Uganda...

AFRICA Country Business Index (ACBI) has called on African countries to ratify and sign important agreements to promote trade and investment in the continent. According to ACBI recommendations from the study conducted in seven African countries show that they performed better in awareness and use of free trade areas followed by a commercial environment. This was revealed on Tuesday in Arusha by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and ACBI report that surveyed businesses in Angola, Cote d'Ivoire, Gabon, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria and South Africa. Some of the agreements that African countries were advised to ratify are namely African Aviation Market, People's Free Movement protocols, Copyright and Electronic Trade. Speaking at the Webinar on Primer for the AfCFTA Country Business Index report that was organized by Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the Executive Director, East African Business Council (EABC) Mr John Kalisa said, there is a need for flexible and clear predictable rules of origin for business to benefit from AfCFTA. He also elaborated that the Rules of Origin consists of three broad dimensions as the first is the Good Restrictiveness and Costs, AfCFTA Knowledge and Commercial Environment in particular domestic environment related to services and other new generation issues under negotiation in the AfCFTA. Mr Kalisa further explained that intra-regional trade is sliding back below 20 per cent due to persistent tariff and Non-Tariff Barriers imposed on both large and micro small medium enterprises. He also recommended the sensitization campaigns on the AfCFTA, harmonization of standards and sanitary...