Rwanda and Tanzania individually signed two mega-infrastructure deals in the last week in moves that will undoubtedly reshape the East African region politically and economically. Kenya stands to lose most. Tanzania signed an agreement to link its new railway line to Burundi and the DRC, while a similar deal with Rwanda is said to be in its final stages. The transport ministers of the three countries signed the deal in Kigoma, Tanzania, on 3 December. Three-way funding The first phase of the joint deal will start in Kigoma and end in Gitega, the capital of Burundi, 240km away. It will then be extended into eastern DRC. Each country will have to get funding for its own section, Tanzania’s transport minister, Isack Kamwelwe, said at the signing ceremony. The first phase of Tanzania’s Standard Gauge Railway (SRG), covering 202km from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro, is almost complete. The second phase will connect Morogoro to the administrative capital of Dodoma, even as the East African country also revamps its old metre-gauge railway to enhance connectivity. When complete, the new railway line will cover 1,457km, connecting Dar and the Lake Victoria port city of Mwanza. In May 2018, Rwanda and Tanzania agreed to redesign their joint railway plan, which will start at the Isaka dry port and end in Kigali, to use electric powered trains. In late November, Tanzania’s President John Magufuli said that the two countries are in the final phases of negotiating a deal to build the railway line. The Isaka-Kigali line...

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) Council of Ministers has been tasked to furnish the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) with comprehensive reports on regular basis about implementation of pillars of integration. Specifically, the ministers are supposed to inform the august House on each partner state’s status in relation to progress in execution of the Customs Union Protocol and the Common Market Protocol. The resolution was moved by Dr Abdullah Hasnuu Makame (Tanzania Constituency) and adopted by the House. It further wants the Council of Ministers to direct all partner states to fully implement the Customs U nion Protocol by June 2020 and the Common Market Protocol, a year later. The House further urges the Secretary General, (Ambassador Liberat Mfumukeko) to furnish the House with comprehensive reports on the implementation of the Food Security Action Plan, the Climate Change Policy and the Industrialisation Policy and Strategy. The Council of Ministers is also encouraged to develop Comprehensive Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting frameworks that would track implementation of major actions to be taken and adopted by the Summit of EAC Heads of State and other organs. According to Dr Makame, it is only the Customs Union Protocol that has a stipulated Treaty Timeframe under Article 75(7 ), with the Treaty documenting a period of four years in which to conclude it. He informed the House that, Article 7 7 of the Treaty forecast on the establishment of a Common Market through a Protocol that would be concluded without prescribing a timeframe to achieve...

The second meeting of the Ad-Hoc commiittee of Ugandan and Rwandan officials set up to implement the Luanda Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that is aimed at resolving ongoing disputes between the two countries will take place in Kampala on Friday. This follows Rwanda’s dispatching of a team of the country’s officials to Kampala after two postponements of the meeting at Kigali’s request. “Uganda and Rwanda will tomorrow hold a follow-up meeting….to the one held in Kigali in September to concretize in the MOU signed in Luanda, Angola in August 2019,” Uganda Government Spokesperson Ofwono Opondo on Thursday tweeted of the meeting to take place at Speke Resort Munyonyo. In February this year, Rwanda closed its main border with Uganda at Katuna and blocked cargo from crossing into its territory causing a customs crisis. Since then, there have been accusations and counter accusations between Kampala and Kigali mostly relating to security. In the  Luanda MoU, the two Heads of State of Uganda and Rwanda undertook to respect the sovereignty of each other and of the neighboring countries. They also undertook to refrain from actions conducive to destabilization or subversion in the territory of the other party and neighboring countries thereby “eliminating all factors that may create such perception as well as that of acts such as the financing, training and infiltration of destabilizing forces.” The two Principals also agreed to protect and respect the rights and freedoms of the nationals of the other party residing or transiting in their national territories...

Most sad to say, Tanzania has lost to the Grim Reaper one of its most illustrious pillars in entrepreneurship and the private sector in general, Ali Mufuruki, who died yesterday in Johannesburg. The holder of a BSc degree (1986) in mechanical design engineering from Reutlingen University in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, Mufuruki was a prosperous businessman, founder and board member-cum-chairman-cum-trustee of several flourishing entities in and outside Tanzania. Mufuruki was the founder, chief executive officer and chairman of the Infotech Investment Group family business; the founding chairman of CEO Roundtable of Tanzania (CEOrt), Africa Leadership Initiative (ALI East Africa), and Nairobi-based Msingi East Africa Ltd. He also served as board chairman of Vodacom Tanzania; Wananchi Group Holdings; a trustee of the Mandela Institute for Development Studies (MINDS-SA); TradeMark Africa (Nairobi); Chai Bora Ltd; a trustee of Trustee ATMS Foundation and AMSCO (The Netherlands) and Legacy Capital Partners Ltd. Mufuruki also served at one time or another as council member-cum-chairman of the Grants Committee of the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences; chairman of the Tanzania Public Safety Trust Fund; Partner of East Africa Capital Partners (Kenya); Member of the Tanzania National Business Council, and of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Advisory Group on sub-Saharan Africa (AGSA). In early 2016, Mufuruki was appointed co-chairman of the UK Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the impact of UK Aid for Africa Free Trade Initiative (AFTI). Also, he co-authored a 2017 book with Rahim Mawji, Gilman Kasiga and Moremi Marwa titled Tanzania’s Industrialisation Journey, 2016-2056:...

(Ecofin Agency) – The Government of Rwanda has secured funding from the Netherlands for the development of four ports on Lake Kivu (Western Province), with the aim of increasing shipping, trade and tourism . According to the agreement, the Netherlands will co-finance 45% ($ 10.8 million) for the construction of ports and their facilities. Port development will be supported by TradeMark Africa, which is funding 50% of the project while the government will mobilize the remaining 5%. These different ports, with a total cost of $ 24 million, will be constructed in the districts of Rubavu, Rusizi, Karongi (at the Karongi Transborder Market) and Rutsiro. They should be operational by 2022. According to the Rwandan Transport Development Agency (RTDA), three of the ports will have a capacity of about 1.5 million passengers per year, which is expected to reach 2.8 million passengers by 2036. The smaller port, the fourth scheduled in the Karongi district, will start with a capacity of approximately 300,000 passengers per year by 2020 and target 400,000 passengers by 2036. Consolidated, they will have a handling capacity of between 270 000 tonnes and 580,000 tonnes. Once completed, these ports should open up the Western Province to tourism, increase connectivity between districts along the shores of the lake while boosting cross-border trade between Rwanda and the DRC. Romuald Ngueyap Source: EN24

Africa’s future growth depends on policies that allow free movement and enable young people to look for opportunities beyond national borders. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) secretary-general Mukhisa Kituyi said at the ongoing Kusi Ideas Festival at Intare Arena in Kigali that the continent currently has a generation of young people who were more interested in collaborations than competition. Dr Kituyi spoke on the panel discussion themed, ‘Borderless Africa and why it is a winner’, that also featured Linus Gitahi, a board member of Msingi East Africa, and Rwanda Development Board chief executive Clare Akamanzi. “These young people look for opportunities beyond national frontiers. They overlook analogue boundaries and all the physical boundaries as they chase their dreams. This is the future and governments now need to create policies for them to ease travel, access and movement across the continent,” Dr Kituyi said. The panellists challenged Africa’s leaders to open up their borders to migrants and allow them to thrive within the continent as opposed to being self-centred and closed up, putting restrictive travel and migration policies. “We need to understand that almost 53 percent of migrant movements is intra-African and for Africa, we should take advantage of this. “Migrants are good both for the country they move to in terms of new and fresh human resource and also the countries they come from, through remittances. We need to encourage that,” Dr Kituyi said. “The millennials want to trade the way they go about their activities in...

The 20thEdition of the annual East African Community Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSES) Trade Fair, formerly known as JuaKali Nguvu Kazi Exhibition is set for 13th to 22nd December, 2019 at Gikondo Expo Grounds in Kigali, Rwanda. The 20th Edition Trade Fair themed;EAC@20: Building EAC through Micro and Small Enterprises jointly organized on a rotational basis by the EAC Secretariat, the East African Confederation of Informal Sector Organisation (EACISO) in collaboration with EAC Partner States,  brings together artisans from the six (6) EAC Partner States comprising Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. According to the Director-General Customs and Trade at the EAC Secretariat, Kenneth Bagamuhunda, the MSE’s trade fair is expected to attract up to 1,300 exhibitors from EAC Partner States’ Trade Facilitation Institutions and  EAC Organs and Institutions. He disclosed that during the exhibitions, daily symposia will be conducted to build the capacity of the artisans on integration matters and other issues pertinent to the development of their businesses. The key areas of capacity building that will be  covered by the symposium component include the following: Cross Border Trade, the EAC Simplified Trade Regime and dealing with NTBs Products value addition Standards, Quality Assurance, Metrology and Testing (SQMT), Benefits and opportunities of the EAC Integration Process to SMEs EAC Rules of Origin MSMES and MSE’s development and opportunities in the Republic of South Sudan The 20th MSE’s EAC Exhibition is expected to be officially opened by His Excellency Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda....

The Central Bank Governor John Rwangombwa and the current chairman of the Association of African Central Banks, has called for an Integrated Regional Financial system in order to unleash the full potential of trade on the continent. Rwangombwa was speaking at the Regional Financial Stability Symposium in Rabat, Morocco on Monday, December 9, 2019. The call at the symposium comes at a time when Africa has achieved a key milestone in regional integration which was spurred by the signing of the Africa Continental Free Trade (AfCFTA). The AfCFTA signed in Kigali, in March 2018 by Heads of State of the African Union (AU), has been successfully ratified. The main objective of the CFTA is to create a single continental market for goods and services as well as a customs union with free movement of goods and services across the continent. “In less than a year of signing the agreement, the First Intra-African Trade Fair was held in Cairo- Egypt. From this trade fair, business deals of over $32 billion were concluded, well above the initial target of $25 billion,” Rwangombwa told the symposium. It is against this performance that Rwangombwa said that this exceptional achievement is proof to a potent force of what a united Africa is capable of achieving and a vote of confidence to the financial sector integration. He said, therefore, that a stable and integrated financial system is a prerequisite for the success of this bold move taken by our leaders to integrate Africa into one market....

The movement of workers from lower to higher productivity employment is essential for growth in low income countries. However, even with this movement economic structures have changed very little and this has been a concern for economists and policy analysts. Historically, manufacturing drove economic transformation in many developed nations but today new technologies have spawned a growing number of services and agro-industries including agriculture. They are tradable, have high value added per worker and can absorb large number of moderately skilled workers. Like manufacturing they benefit from technological change, productivity growth. One of the changes emerging in Africa is Manufacturing led transformation of East Asia, ICT-based services, and tourism and transport are outpacing the growth of manufacturing in many African countries. Between 1998-2015, services exports grew more than six times faster than merchandise exports. Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa have vibrant ICT based services. Tourism is Rwanda’s largest single export activity accounting for about 30 percent of total exports, in 2014, 9.5 million tourists visited South Africa contributing three percent to its GDP. Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Senegal all actively participate in global horticulture value addition chain. Ethiopia has achieved extraordinary success in flowers exports, so much so that the country is now a global player in the sector. Kenya has achieved extraordinary success in Tea exports and the country is a global player in the sector. It's possible to develop a strategy for structural transformation based on three factors that have largely shaped the global distribution of manufacturing,...