The Kenya Private Sector (KEPSA) has launched an ecommerce booster program targeting at least 2,000 Micro, Small and Medium sized Enterprises (MSMES). The program is funded by the European Union and UK’s Foreign Commonwealth Development Office, with support from TradeMark Africa. Amari Consulting will provide the technical support for the booster program. The program targets businesses with little or no digital presence for training and on-boarding to e-commerce platforms. This is in an effort to ensure MSMEs can increase and diversify their revenue streams during this period of COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the economic disruptions of COVID-19 e-commerce has been embraced as an important tool and solution for businesses and consumers. E-commerce is an economic driver for both domestic growth and international trade, thus making economies more competitive. As a result, attention has been drawn to several challenges hindering the full potential of e-commerce across many countries. These include price gouging, product safety concerns, deceptive practices, weak delivery logistics, cyber security concerns, among other development-related concerns. The six month long initiative will build the capacity of MSMEs to engage in e-commerce and digital marketing as well as create linkages for domestic and cross-border trade. Listed below are the KEPSA e-commerce booster program main objectives. To help SMEs gain the digital skills necessary to engage in a digital economy and improve livelihoods. To support SMEs in the wholesale and retail sector with little or no e-commerce presence to get on board e-commerce platforms to increase and diversify revenue streams during the...

The Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) on Thursday, February 25 launched an Ecommerce Booster Program targeting at least 2000 Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs). The program will be realized through funding from the European Union and UK’s Foreign Commonwealth Development Office. TradeMark Africa, a leading aid for trade regional body in East Africa will support the program, while the technical support for this program is being provided by Amari Consulting Ltd. Types of businesses targeted Businesses with little or no digital presence are being targeted for training and on-boarding to e-commerce platforms to ensure MSMEs can increase and diversify their revenue streams during this period of COVID-19 pandemic. As COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause disruptions in the global and regional value chains, it has become clear that e-commerce is an important tool and solution for businesses and consumers. E-commerce can support small businesses in reducing their costs and effectively reaching their customers; it is an economic driver for both domestic growth and international trade thus making economies more competitive. Challenges to be solved The COVID-19 pandemic has occasioned a spike in business-to-consumer (B2C) online sales and an increase in Business-to-Business (B2B) e-commerce. The increase in B2C sales is particularly evident in online sales of medical supplies, household essentials and food products. As a result, attention has been drawn to several challenges hindering the full potential of e-commerce across countries. These include price gouging, product safety concerns, deceptive practices, weak delivery logistics, cyber security concerns, exceptionally low consumer digital trust,...

The government will continue engaging neighbouring countries, especially DR Congo, under bilateral and regional frameworks to ensure continued flow of cross border trade, especially after the initial Covid-19 induced border closures exempted only big trucks with transit goods. James Tayebwa, a cross-border trade policy specialist at the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MINICOM), noted this as he explained how challenges facing small or informal cross-border traders during the Covid-19 pandemic are being addressed. A report jointly published Wednesday by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), TradeMark Africa (TMA) and the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) called for "urgent policy action from the EAC Partner States", to address the challenges facing informal cross-border traders. The outbreak of Covid-19 early last year came with a number of restrictions, including cross-border movement. During the initial restrictions for only big consignments, Tayebwa said, the government "encouraged the small-scale cross border traders to aggregate their goods under groups mainly transporting the goods across the border by hiring motorized tricycles." The groups, Tayebwa noted, are not only for the big formal cooperatives but even small traders in the same line of business can team up and trade as one unit. Trade between neighbouring countries conducted by vulnerable, small and often unregistered traders who move marchandise between markets close to the border forms a significant part of intra-EAC trade. It contributes income, provides jobs and empowers women in some of the most fragile and impoverished communities on the continent. This is why experts see any threat...

Local and regional exports have recovered to pre-Covid-19 levels following a sharp decline in April 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic according to a report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, TradeMark Africa and African Economic Research Consortium (AERC). The report showed that by the end of the third quarter, a majority of East Africa Community countries, exports had surpassed 2019 levels. In Rwanda, exports had grown by 13.6 per cent in comparison to 2019, statistics from the Ministry of Trade and Industry show. The report’s authors noted that recovery of exports was largely driven by non-traditional exports as well as value addition. “Aggregate exports from the region declined to their lowest values in April 2020. However, they started recovering in the ensuing months. In fact, in the third quarter of 2020, most of the EAC Partner States’ exports surpassed their 2019 level,” the report noted. Jonas Munyurangabo, Director General for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, said that Rwanda had experienced the same trade with exports growth driven by non-traditional exports, minerals and re-exports. He noted that while previously, exports were driven by tea and coffee, in 2020 exports relied on products such as milling products, vegetables, flowers among others. Munyurangabo noted that among the lessons that were picked from the 2020 pandemic experience is the need to increase attention to intra-regional trade which had proved to be more resilient during the slump. According to the report, Intra-EAC trade exhibited...

Manufactured products remain key in driving Kenya's long-term post-Covid recovery on trade, a report launched yesterday indicates, even as it paints a gloomy picture for commodity exports. Called 'Waving or drowning– impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on East African trade, the report by TradeMark Africa, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and African Economic Research Consortium, notes Kenya recorded strong performance in trade in the last quarter of 2020, buoyed by manufacturing. Increase was mainly noted in industrial supplies (non-food) and capital equipment. This came with a rebound on intra-East African Community trade as Kenya recorded the biggest export volumes on trade with her regional peers. Total volumes shipped from Kenya (exports) to the region were valued at Sh165 billion in quarter three (October-December) 2020, picking up from slow performance of Sh130 billion in the second quarter when the impact of Covid-19 was rife on regional economies. Pre-Covid, the volumes were valued at Sh175 billion (January-March), the report released this week indicates. Heightened dependence on commodity export, such as tea for Kenya, is however worrying, the survey notes, as tea prices remained depressed last year. Uganda, a key trading partner with Kenya, had the second-highest volumes valued at Sh137.4 billion. Exports from Kenya to Uganda are mainly palm oil and its fractions, iron or non-alloy steel, petroleum oils and salt, among other goods. Intra-EAC trade hit a negative 110 in April when countries closed their borders to slow the spread of the virus. It started picking up in May in three countries (Kenya, Uganda and Burundi). UNECA director of Africa (sub-regional office -...

In the latest episode of Connecting Africa, CNN International’s Eleni Giokos explores how data and technology are transforming transport infrastructure across the continent. First up, Giokos visits the Kenya Standard Gauge Railway (S-G-R) to see how it is benefitting the import and export industry. Since it was launched in 2017, the S-G-R has moved more than four million tons of cargo along a vital transportation corridor connecting Naivasha and Nairobi with the Port of Mombasa. Abhishek Sharma, Senior Director of Transport at TradeMark Africa, tells Giokos how the railway has impacted trade at the port, “Our whole transport system has been realigned. For the longest time, very little cargo was moving by rail, up to 95% of the cargo was moving by road. Suddenly, there has been a massive shift where for containerised cargo from Mombasa to Nairobi 60% of the imports are moving by rail. So, it's a whole different way in which things are being done.” In a region with many landlocked countries, logistics costs can add up to 60% on the consumer price of imported basic commodities. Sharma speaks about the positive impact the S-G-R has had on reducing these costs, “Any intervention which reduces the cost of logistics in our region, makes a big difference to what the people in our region can achieve in terms of their health outcomes and educational outcomes, as well as, you know, to be able to save a bit more.” In the future, the S-G-R project is planned to connect...

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East African Community (EAC) member states have been urged to continue ring-fencing crucial export sectors from lockdown measures because the pandemic is far from over. This advice is contained in a research report produced by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), in partnership with TradeMark Africa (TMA) and African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) that was launched last week. Titled; "Waving or Drowning? The Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on East African Trade”, the report notes that whereas EAC economies have so far been resilient against the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are “not out of the woods”. This is because of the pandemic’s rapidly evolving nature and its spillover effects, which may still present a significant threat to trade and commerce within the region over the coming years. Speaking during the launch of the report last week, TMA chief executive officer Frank Matsaert alluded that the pandemic is going to be around for some time, thus the need to draw lessons and support countries to fully recover. Matsaert explained that the report provides a good starting point for governments, private sector and other stakeholders to think about how to respond to the pandemic and its impact on trade, in the medium and longer-term, adding that evidence-based interventions are crucial for robust policymaking and programmatic responses. Stable exports According to the report, EAC exports have recovered to pre-crisis levels, despite the earlier sharp decline posted in April 2020, with most EAC member states’ exports surpassing their 2019 levels...

When the COVID-19 pandemic crisis started; most people were extremely pessimistic. They thought that the the region would drown in terms of trade declining catastrophically. But in actual fact the the East Africa Community economies (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda) have, by global standards, proven to be relatively resilient. The newly launched joint report by UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), TradeMark Africa (TMA) and African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) entitled 'Waving or Drowning? The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on East African Trade' notes that declines in imports broadly reflected the adverse trade performance of the EAC's main trading partners during the early phases of the pandemic in April and May 2020, but the imports of all the EAC Partner States subsequently recovered to pre-pandemic levels by the second half of 2020, after governments' lockdown restrictions were eased and a broader global trade recovery started to take place. Nonetheless, despite showing resilience, COVID-19 has reversed some of the gains made in trade facilitation. Immediately after COVID-19 outbreak, the ship dwell time at Mombasa port increased by 48% and Berth time increased by 52% . Cargo transit from Mombasa Port to Malaba (the border between Kenya and Uganda) increased from 7 days to 11 days by the second quarter of 2020. The time taken to transport goods via the Mombasa-Busia route was nearly three times higher. On the Central Corridor, the transit time from Dar-es-Salaam to various cities in the neighbouring countries more than doubled. The marked...

ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- The East Africa Community (EAC) economies have proven to be relatively resilient in terms of the catastrophic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic despite greater need for economic diversification, according to a newly launched United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) report. The newly launched joint report by UNECA, TradeMark Africa (TMA) and African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), entitled "Waving or Drowning? The Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on East African Trade." "They thought that the region would drown in terms of trade declining catastrophically. But in actual fact, the EAC economies (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda) have, by global standards, proven to be relatively resilient," the joint report read. The report noted that declines in imports broadly reflected the adverse trade performance of the EAC's main trading partners during the early phases of the pandemic in April and May 2020. It, however, indicated that the imports of all the EAC partner states subsequently recovered to pre-pandemic levels by the second half of 2020, after governments' lockdown restrictions were eased and a broader global trade recovery started to take place. "Nonetheless, despite showing resilience, COVID-19 has reversed some of the gains made in trade facilitation," the report affirmed. According to the report, the marked increase in transit times highlights the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic at border points. Immediately after COVID-19 outbreak, the ship dwell time at Mombasa port, in Kenya, increased by 48 percent and Berth time increased by 52...