““Our Mission is to promote, assist and enhance economic and business development for all our members at both National and County level so as to stimulate wealth at all levels of governments right from the communities they represent,” she reckons. The two-day program was initiated by the High Commissioner of Uganda to Kenya Phoebe Otaala ,under the theme “Unlocking business women’s potential in the region”. The delegation further paid a courtesy call on Uganda President Yoweri Museveni to sought his guidance and intervention on various challenges facing businesses along the Kenya Uganda border. WIB acknowledges that the existing structures such as border offices and market stalls are often dilapidated, whilst toilets, lighting, and fencing are typically absent. In addition, high customs duties, complex clearance procedures, cumbersome documentary requirements (often featuring centralized permit and licensing systems), along with unpredictable trade policies all contribute to raising trade costs. “We shall strive to blend all women professionals in the Women in Business to find the synergy required to empower and create an expanded economic atmosphere and market for all-inclusive business development,” Muthoni says. The business lobby group has voiced its support or contents of the Building Bridges Initiative Report. Through its President Muthoni, the group supports the recommendations to allow the youth to least have a seven year tax holiday as an initiative to help them in business entrepreneurship. She stated the tax holiday would encourage both women and youth to engage in business. Muthoni further termed the tax holiday proposal as crucial...

East Africa’s economic landscape is replete with contradictions: While it is cited as being ahead in economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa with its GDP projected to expand by 6.1 per cent against a continental average of 3.6 per cent in 2020, the region is swimming in tough economic times. Across the region, analysts caution that economic growth is largely superficial since it is being driven by public infrastructure investments as opposed to being private sector-driven. “Rising debt servicing costs against a backdrop of sluggish revenue growth will limit governments’ capacity to stimulate economic activity and/or worsen fiscal balances, posing downside risks to investor sentiment,” said a Fitch Solutions report released in December. Analysts at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) project a slowdown in the region’s economic growth to 6.1 per cent in 2020 from 6.3 per cent in 2019. EAC countries are therefore facing another challenging year of balancing budgetary books amid the burdens of servicing public debts, failure to meet revenue targets driven by a slugging private sector, shedding of jobs, flattening FDIs and declining volumes of exports. Across the region, over 40 per cent of revenues will be directed towards debt servicing at a time when the IMF is warning that debt across the region is gravitating towards unsustainable levels. The new year finds the region saddled with debt to the tune of $100 billion, widening budget deficits and expanding current accounts, as governments undertake mega projects. Kenya and Tanzania’s total public debts...

The much anticipated African Free Trade Zone – the world’s largest trade zone – is set to launch in July this year. It will be a major development for the continent where most countries mainly trade with nations outside Africa. Only 15% of trade is done between African countries compared to 70% of trade among European nations and 25% in the South East Asian region. The Continental Free Trade Area will comprise of 53 African countries with a population of 1.2 billion people and an estimated gross domestic product of $2.5 trillion. Eritrea is the only African country that has not signed the African Continental Free Trade Area treaty. Some of the challenges that are likely to hinder the single market project are: Poor road and rail networks linking African nations Underdeveloped industries High dependence on custom revenue Inefficient border posts Additionally, there are concerns that the more developed nations will gain from the single market at the expense of the less developed nations. Countries like South Africa and Egypt, with their advanced industrial base, will benefit by selling their goods to less developed markets in the region. For the Single Market trade agreement to succeed, African countries need to improve their infrastructure, create new revenue streams away from customs income, eliminate protectionist laws, and improve efficiency at points of entry. Source: The Kenyan Wall Street

Africa made history this year as the agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) officially entered into force. As trading under the AfCFTA starts on July 1, 2020, with a market of over a billion people and income of about $3 trillion, the big question is whether the new free trade area will lead to one big African market. Already, the AfCFTA has energised the continent by positioning regional integration front and centre. By requiring member states to remove tariffs from 90 per cent of goods, the agreement is expected to boost trade among African countries from its low level of 16 per cent. The Economic Commission for Africa estimates likely trade effects of over 50 per cent. Yet, lowering tariffs further will not be the magic bullet. Overcoming non-tariff barriers is key. Here are factors to facilitate one big African market. Regional Economic Communities (RECs): Africa’s regions have many RECs with overlapping memberships, including the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa and the East African Community. These RECs are at different stages of integration. The AfCFTA aimed to consolidate them into one entity. That did not happen. AfCFTA’s Article 19(2) states that “members of a regional economic community that have attained higher levels of regional integration than under the AfCFTA, shall maintain such higher levels among themselves”. This provision mandates trade liberalisation to follow different paths, not one single market. The signatories recognise the problem of many overlapping RECs. At their July summit meeting, they asked...

Two decades after the region’s leaders signed on to the revival of the East African Community (EAC), it has been planned that the Community will merge in joining forces to work and transact business as one. Are these plans coming as soon as we expect? And why am I not feeling EAC’s growth in my pocket despite the region significantly being praised throughout the continent and among international partners over its economic and regional performance? Well, these are some of revealing questions that run in everyone’s mind when the prospects to form a single currency by 2024 or deliver a rich, peaceful continent criss-crossed by high-speed trains by 2063 are made — especially in this current environment with prolonged political differences between the bigwig leaders, perceptions around unfair distribution of the benefits, and costs of regional integration; that have all halted the momentum, undermining regional integration process. The East African countries that include; Uganda, Kenya Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan that joined in September 2016, them coming together, there have been tremendous euphoria that the merger will build equitable and balanced economies, productive political and social standards which will eventually strengthen cooperation, from the socio-economic and political standpoint both in the individual countries, the continent, and the world at large. The master plan since the formation of the EAC, has been to have a free movement of people within the community, intra-trade to grow significantly — having common services like universities, airlines, railways and other infrastructures, has always been...

It is der rigueur in the field of regional integration that a functioning common market is necessary before a monetary union. This is echoed in Article 5(1)(a) of the protocol establishing the East African Community Monetary Union (Eamu), which dictates that there must be seamless movement of people, goods and services within the East African Community partner states. This assumption feeds on the fact that it is more pragmatic to realise the benefits of a monetary union where there is free movement of goods, labour and capital. Simply put, money moves where goods, services and people can also move. But with a lukewarm common market, the EAC is creating a monetary union that will, among other things, have a single currency for Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. A monetary union, strictly defined, means the use of a common currency by a group of countries. It entails the abandonment of national currencies and fiscal policies for a supranational shared currency. Previously, the EAC had a “monetary union” with the shilling as its currency. This ceased with the end of colonial rule. But in 2013, the revamped EAC signed the Protocol for the Establishment of the East African Community Monetary Union in line with the treaty. The Heads of State soon ordered the acceleration of a single currency. Stakeholder forums and comprehensive studies were held and a high-level task force formed to assess preparedness for such a union. A monetary union, it is hoped, will lead to reduction in...

The World Bank has projected a weaker economic growth in sub Saharan African in 2020, pinning hopes on investor confidence to turnaround fortunes of the region’s economies. According to the Bank’s 2020 Global Economic Prospects, growth is expected to pick up to 2.9 per cent this year, assuming investor confidence improves in some large economies, energy bottlenecks ease and robust growth continues in agricultural commodity exporters. The forecast is weaker than previously expected, reflecting softer demand from key trading partners, lower commodity prices and adverse domestic developments in several countries. But for East African Community, the problem is further compounded by low intra-trade, meaning much needed foreign exchange is spent on imports from outside the region, leading to slowdown in manufacturing and reduced job opportunities. This is the reason increasing intra-East African Community trade is top on the agenda of the regional private sector-led umbrella body—the East African Business Council (EABC). This was the major resolution arrived at in Arusha last November during the two-day high-level East African Business and Investment Summit. Even though the EAC is one of Africa’s fastest growing regional blocs, registering economic growth of 5.7 per cent in 2018, more intra-trade won’t be easy. While the Summit took stock of EAC achievements for the past 20 years, it is increasingly becoming clear that the more resolutions are made to increase intra-trade, the more the challenges the region faces. “Mechanisms for resolving Non tariff barriers were put in place, for instance, the national monitoring committees and regional...

Le projet « femmes dans le commerce transfrontalier », initié par l’ONG Trademark East Africa, vient d’être lancé officiellement. Objectif : relever les défis auxquels font face ces femmes Malmenée et empêchée de travailler. Souvent obligée de payer de l’argent pour exercer tranquillement son commerce… Un grand défi que rencontre Médiatrice, 31 ans, mère de cinq enfants. Lors du lancement officiel de ce projet, cette vendeusede légumes qui exerce sur la frontière burundo-congolaise de Gatumba confie que les « petites commerçantes » font face à de nombreux problèmes. L’absence de Numéro d’identification fiscale (NIF) et des documents requis par l’OBR. Le non-accès à l’information sur les mécanismes de facilitation du commerce.Des infrastructures quasi inexistantes (mauvaises routes, manque de dépôts de stockage) qui rendent la vie très difficile… et bien d’autres problèmes sont vécus par ces petites commerçantes. « Tous ces manquements les exposent à la corruption», affirmele ministre du Commerce, Jean-Marie Niyokindi, qui a lancé ce projet. 400 femmes sont bénéficiaires directes de ce projet qui sera exécuté sur trois frontières: Gatumba, Ruhwa dans la province Cibitoke, Mugina dans la province Makamba et le port de Rumonge. D’après la représentante légale de l’Association des femmes rapatriées du Burundi (Afrabu) qui exécute le projet, l’un des objectifs majeurs est de fournir à ces femmes une information suffisante sur les mécanismes de commerce transfrontalier et les lois qui les régissent. « Le résultat sera d’établir les Bureaux d’information commerciale (BIC) aux frontières de Makamba et Rumonge. » Les femmes représentent 90% des...

The Horn of Africa coast is strategically important because it is on the Bab al Mandab Strait and Indian Ocean coast where nearly 20 percent of the world trade and maritime shipping pass through. Thanks to their sea port developments, it is set to be the gateway and the link that connects the sub-Saharan Africa to this international trade route, Suez Canal and the Arabian Peninsula on the opposite side of the Red Sea. The mercantile shipping vessels plying along the Bab el Mandeb can now drop their transit consignments at any of the Red Sea or Horn of Africa ports. Similarly, export goods from sub-Saharan Africa and their imports from the rest of the world can easily be picked or delivered from these ports and hauled across to central and West Coast of Africa by existing railways or roads. Recently, the significance of the Horn of Africa and its sea ports was boosted by the discoveries of oil, gas and other extractive minerals in the sub-Saharan Africa countries. Huge exploitations of the same are now in progress in Eritrea, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Chad, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Somalia, DR Congo and Kenya; among others. Additionally, the coastal Horn of Africa countries are experiencing a relative peace renaissance that has enabled development of their Ports and Roads developments not realised in the last 50 years. Hitherto, these countries were ravaged by civil and territorial wars, military rules and instabilities that hindered their endeavour to address their national development challenges. This peace...

The East African Community (EAC) secretariat has mobilised almost $1bn to finance infrastructure projects in the region. While regional governments present these development schemes as a result of their own mobilisation, ChimpReports understands the better part of sourcing for funds is done by the EAC secretariat. Infrastructure is considered one of the most critical enablers of a successful regional integration, taking into account its importance in facilitating activities such as trade, agriculture, tourism and the movement of labour and other resources. According to a report recently submitted to East Africa Legislative Assembly by the Secretariat, the Africa Development Bank (AfDB) Board has approved financing for several projects in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania. The bank, through EAC, approved $349m for the construction of the multinational Nyakanazi – Kasulu – Manyovu road in Tanzania (301 km) and Rumonge – Rutunga – Bujumbura road in Burundi (78 km). Through the NEPAD-IPPF Special Fund, AfDB has provided a grant to the EAC for the feasibility study of the multinational Masaka – Mutukula road in Uganda (89 km) and the Mutukula – Kyaka (30km) / Bugene – Kasulo road in Tanzania (124 km). Still in Uganda, AfDB, through EAC, approved USD229m to finance part of the cost of Kampala-Jinja Expressway on the Northern Corridor, with the rest being mobilized through a PPP arrangement. This road is expected to reduce the traffic congestion along Jinja highway to the border with Kenya, a major transit point for imports and exports. Currently, the Isaka-Kigali...