The minister of Trade, industry and cooperatives Hon Amelia Kyambadde has said that trading of manufactured goods between Uganda and Rwanda has dropped significantly over the political squabbles between the two countries. Kyambadde while addressing journalists about Africa Industrialization Day in Kampala today, revealed that trade in manufactured goods between Ugandan and Rwanda over the past months had dropped from USD 300 million to USD 73 million. She attributed this mainly to the closure of the Katuna boarder, which remains closed since March. Rwanda has continued to show less interest in having the stand off resolved. Recently Rwanda pulled out of the second meeting of the peace talks between officials of the two countries in which the reopening of the border was supposed to be discussed. p>Today, Uganda joins the rest of Africa to commemorate Africa Industrialization day with the objective to raise awareness on opportunities and challenges faced by the continent in respect to Industrialization. This year’s theme is “positioning African industry to supply the African continental free Trade area (AFCFTA) market” which was launched on 7th July 2019 by African Heads of State in Niamey, Niger. AFCFTA provides a market of about USD 3 trillion and a consumer base of 1.3 billion people. With this, Kyambadde said Africa’s manufacturing sector is projected to double in size by 2025 and create millions of jobs. She said that government targets to exploit the abundant renewable energy sources to increase power generation to 2500MW by 2020. “The commissioning of Isimba hydropower...

The East African Community (EAC) is not ready for the fourth industrial revolution even as the wave sweeps across the world. This is according to experts who spoke at an industrial conference at the EAC Secretariat in Arusha this week organised by the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (Unido) and German Society for International Cooperation. The Global Manufacturing Industrial Summit (GMIS) roadshow sought to explore the implications of the revolution for the region’s manufacturing, industrialisation and investment prospects. For us to achieve inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, we need to invest in advanced disruptive technologies like 3-D printing, Internet of Things, advanced robotics and drones, which will make manufacturing smarter, efficient and greener,” said Stephen Kargbo, Unido Representative in Tanzania, Mauritius and EAC Secretariat. He added that the advancement of these manufacturing technologies will also help improve acquisition of agro-industries, water and sanitation quality for the rapidly developing towns and cities. Most of these industrialised countries account for over 90 per cent of digital production technologies, have invested hugely in research and development campaigns and we have to move in that direction,” added Kargbo, who said there is also need for solid industrial policy. EAC first came up with an industrialisation policy for 2012-2015 but it failed to be implemented and was revised to 2021-2032. The contribution of manufacturing to the gross domestic product in East Africa is estimated at 8.9 per cent, which is considerably below the average target of about 25 per cent that all the five partner states...

The meeting is held during the “Africa Industrialization Week”, organized by the African Union from the 18th to the 22nd November 2019, according to the press statement from AFZO. The attendees include over 220 delegates representing 43 countries attended this important event, including 60 African economic zones, 30 experts, as well as several representatives of governmental authorities, international institutions and public and private organizations. Several international speakers representing international and financial institutions such as UNCTAD, UNIDO, UNECA, AfDB etc. shared during this event their expertise on effective means for economic zones development in Africa. the statement noted that various topics related to challenges and trends of African economic zones were addressed including strategic directions and effective governance model, contribution of economic zones for FDI growth and job creation, importance of logistics competitiveness within economic zones, skills development and training. The opening ceremony of the Africa Free Zones Organization’ 4th Annual Meeting was cochaired by M. Albert Muchanga the Commissioner for Trade and Industry of the African Union Commission (AUC), Ms Dagmawit Moges the Minister of Transport of Ethiopia, M Mehdi Tazi Riffi the President of the Africa Free Zones Organization. Serving the development of Economic Zones in Africa AFZO was founded back in 2015 by Tanger Med along with other African economic zones. Africa Free Zones Organization brings together the leading African economic zones and institutions in charge of the development, management and promotion of economic zones in our continent. The Africa Free Zones Organization aims to ensure: – Representation...

East Africa’s private sector players are concerned by the slow pace of resolving a common external tariff (CET) regime which is expected to usher in a free trade zone. A free trade zone will increase intra East African Community (EAC) trade, as there will be no duty on goods and services imposed amongst them. The regime will also agree on a common CET, where imports from countries outside the bloc will be subjected to the same tariff across partner states. Though Nicholas Nesbitt, the chair of East African Business Council, did not directly refer to the frustrations, it is an inference taken out of his statement when he said the issue was creating a “dilemma.” Council agenda Nesbitt said finalising the review on CET was part of an item on the council’s agenda, to be presented to the EAC council of ministers for delivery of quick wins for the region. “There are ongoing discussions whether to adopt a three-band or four-band structure with the highest rate of 35 per cent CET. The challenge is if you are a manufacturing country, you will want a high CET while trading countries will want a low CET to import finished goods for your citizens. Therein, lies the dilemma,” said Nesbitt. The implementation of CET is behind schedule, as it was to take effect on July 1, this year. The bloc’s member states had agreed there be a CET of zero per cent on raw materials and capital goods, 10 per cent on intermediate...

The owners of Dubai Ports (DP) World Kigali Logistics Platform, a new modern inland cargo handling facility, are considering the feasibility of running it as a regional e-commerce hub. The $35 million facility, launched in October this year, sits on 13 hectares and features an Inland Container Terminal (ICT) with ample warehousing capacity, a container yard, administrative and services buildings, and parking spaces. Nadya Abdullah Al Kamali, Chief Executive of Customs World, told The New Times here that they are working on aligning the Kigali operations with e-commerce activities. She added that the facility is being marketed as an avenue to serve the regional market as a one-stop-shop facility. “We have big plans for the Kigali port, which is a state of the art facility. The Government has been very cooperative in its set-up, we want it to serve as a regional facility,” she said. She was speaking to this reporter on the sidelines of the Global Business Forum underway in Dubai. This comes at a time when the Dubai-based Customs World is in the process of selecting four hubs in Africa for its Dubai Silk Road Strategy, which seeks to increase UAE’s involvement in transport and logistics services across the globe. Its chief executive, however, did not disclose the countries they are in negotiations with at the moment. With its services currently spanning about 65 countries across the world, the holding company recently launched an initiative dubbed World Logistics Passport to boost the role of the Dubai Silk Road programme, which paves...

This week, hundreds of Rwandans will flock the annual ‘Made in Rwanda’ trade fair to shop their favorite locally-made products and services. It has become a tradition every year for Rwandans to attend such fairs and for local producers to showcase their products. According to the Private Sector Federation, the chief organisers of the event, last year, the trade fair saw 450 exhibitors showcasing their locally produced products. That was an 80 per cent increased growth in its four-year history. This year, more than 500 exhibitors are expected to showcase their products and services. That has a genesis. In 2015, the Government embarked on a campaign that was aimed at promoting domestic consumption of Made in Rwanda products, with the intentions of stimulating the demand for domestic production. That was expected to increase export volumes and revenues and ultimately help to offset the trade deficit, which had been rising significantly at the time. At the same time, the Government laid out the ‘Domestic Market Recapturing Strategy’ to identify priority areas that would quickly contribute to Rwanda’s market recapturing. Those sectors were construction materials, light manufacturing and agro-processing. In 2017, the Made in Rwanda policy was introduced, highlighting specific steps and actions through which the country would step up efforts aimed at promoting domestic production and consumption. Today, there is a host of local producers racing to lure Rwandans to buy their products, while others are already exporting their products to regional and international markets. Diane Mukasahaha, a businesswoman based in Kigali, points particularly to the...

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has signed an unfunded $250-million (Shs920bn) Risk Participation Agreement (RPA) facility with ABSA – a pan-Africa financial institution with a solid presence in 12 African countries. The 3-year RPA facility was signed November 12, on the sidelines of the Africa Investment Form through its trade finance operations. Under this 3-year RPA facility, the Bank and ABSA will share default risk on a portfolio of eligible trade transactions originated by African Issuing Banks (IBs) and confirmed by ABSA. Leveraging the Bank’s AAA rating, ABSA will underwrite trade transactions issued by African issuing banks across key sectors like agriculture, energy, and light-manufacturing with a special focus on Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME’s)  in fragile and low-income African countries. The Bank’s commitment under the RPA is to assume up to 50% (and 75% in special cases) of every underlying transaction issued by the IBs, while ABSA will confirm such a transaction and bear not less than 50% of its underlying risk. Working with strategic partners like ABSA, the Bank’s  trade finance operations aim to facilitate inter and intra Africa trade by reducing the trade financing gap on the continent. Since 2013, the Bank’s RPA program has supported over 16 issuing banks with about US$650 million  limits in Southern Africa alone, with special focus on SMEs and local corporates in manufacturing, agribusiness, import/export and energy sectors. In the same period, the program supported over $4billion in trade volumes across Africa, with $938 million of that being intra-Africa trade....

For the first time, Africans need visas to travel to less than half of other African countries, the report finds. A record 87% of African countries either improved or maintained their score, an increase of 9 points from 2018. The biggest improvements were made by Ethiopia, which moved up 32 places to join the top 20 in terms of openness, mirroring the country’s progress in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index. Senegal’s move to introduce visas on arrival for some African countries and removing visas required before travel pushed it up into the top 10. Yet the freedom of movement that will be needed to make the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) a success remains a work in progress. Africa’s infrastructure deficit was a central theme at the AIF, which highlighted the need to attract investment into large-scale railway and road projects. Such projects will both require and further stimulate the free movement of people. Only two African countries, Seychelles and Benin, offer visa-free access to all Africans. Higher income African countries are among the laggards. Seven out of eight of Africa’s upper-middle income economies have low visa openness scores, the report finds. Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Cameroon remain near the bottom of the table. Trust deficit The absence of the protocol for free movement of persons was a notable omission from the agenda at the African Union Summit in Niger in July, according to a paper by Mehari Taddele Maru of the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute in Florence. The AfCFTA was launched at...

With its first dry port, Rwanda is looking to create a gateway of trade to Kenya, Tanzania, and beyond, sparking interregional trade across the continent. Source: Marketplace Africa

First international digital road freight platform to be launched in the continent; Provides shippers and carriers a one-stop platform for road freight connections for domestic shipments within South Africa and international movements to several neighbouring countries; Further expansion to connect shippers and carriers within Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is planned for early 2020. Digital freight forwarder Saloodo! a subsidiary of DHL Global Forwarding, the leading international provider of air, sea and road freight services, today launched its digital logistics platform for shippers and transport providers in South Africa, bringing the first digital road freight solution to the region. An efficient road freight network is a key conduit of trade within a geographically wide-spread country such as South Africa but also with 16 landlocked countries within Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, much of the region’s road freight operations remain fragmented and highly traditional, missing out on the visibility, efficiency and security that logistics technology offers. “Digital transformation is a top priority for the industry and given the demographics, we expect demand for digital transformation to be driven by emerging markets globally,” said Tobias Maier, CEO of Saloodo! Middle East and Africa. “Africa is the world’s youngest continent with 60% of the continent below 25. This is a dynamic generation of digitally-minded young adults, demanding smart, digital solutions both on the business and home front.” With South Africa as its launch pad into Sub-Saharan Africa, Saloodo! is the first digital logistics platform available in the region that offers a single, simple and reliable interface...