Leading East African planning, design, architecture and engineering team FBW Group is playing its part in the drive to transform the region’s logistics sector and boost trade opportunities. FBW is part of a consortium currently carrying out feasibility studies centred on the creation of special ‘trade and logistics clusters’ near borders and points of entry in countries across East Africa. Aid-for-trade organisation TradeMark Africa (TMA), funded by UK AID and other donors, is behind the strategy to create special industrial parks and export processing zones to attract investors and boost trade, stimulate growth and create more jobs and better jobs. It is looking to invest $400m to create a million new jobs by 2022 by reducing trade costs by 10 per cent and increasing exports by 25 per cent. FBW Group has operations in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania, and a team of more than 30 professionals delivering high value construction and development projects in the region. It is part of a consortium led by international development consulting company IPE Global that is currently studying possible logistics cluster sites across a number of locations. FBW’s role is to examine the ‘buildability’ of sites and to undertake physical assessments to assess their potential and viability. Moving forward, the group will be involved in master planning schemes that are being taken forward and the preparation of designs for contractor tenders. FBW Group managing director Paul Moores, based in Kampala, said: “We’re delighted to be playing our part in this truly transformation project...

Last week, the UK joined countries from around the world at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) annual Aid for Trade Global Review, calling on our trading partners to help boost developing countries’ participation in the global trading system. Trade is a key driver of economic growth and can trigger positive changes in developing economies; helping to raise incomes, create jobs and lift people out of poverty. Thanks in no small measure to free and open trade, a billion people have been taken out of absolute poverty in one generation, boosting global prosperity and security. All of this is bolstered by developing countries’ membership of the WTO. In joining the world’s largest trade organisation, nations gain improved market access to almost every nation in the world; a cost-effective way to negotiate better trade terms with all 164 members at once; consistent and predictable trade rules that allow businesses to export and invest with confidence; and access to a fair mechanism to resolve disputes with other nations. As one of the world’s largest economies and most vocal advocates of free and fair trade, the UK is committed to ensuring that developing countries can participate fully in the global system. We must also ensure that development and global prosperity are at the heart of our trade policy.  We need a WTO which empowers all WTO members, including developing nations, to help build open and competitive markets that work for all of us. This means ensuring that developing countries have the knowledge, skills and...

Regional countries are set to increase market access for their agricultural products following the commencement of a new capacity building project to mainstream sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS) priorities into national policies. The project is titled: ‘Mainstreaming SPS capacity building into the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and other National Policy Frameworks to Enhance Market Access’. The project has a budget of US$ 464,075 out of which US$ 390,075 is provided by the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) a World Trade Organization (WTO) agency. The project covers five countries that are members of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA); Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Malawi. It is being implemented under the ‘Prioritizing SPS Investments for Market Access (P-IMA) framework, an initiative of the STDF. Kenya is the second country after Uganda, to start implementing the project with the inception meeting and high-level stakeholder dialogues. The events bring together experts from the private sector, relevant public sector departments and institutions of government to build consensus on the most critical SPS priorities and investments. The P-IMA framework is an evidence-based approach to inform and improve SPS planning and decision-making processes. It helps to link SPS investments to public policy goals including export growth, agricultural productivity, and poverty reduction. Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Trade Dr Chris Kiptoo, represented by the Assistant Director of External Trade Mrs. Helen Kenani, opened the meeting. In his statement, he said the variation of SPS capacity across COMESA countries and the...

Kigali 2 July 2019 (ECA) - In an effort to accelerate the implementation of the AfCFTA, Trademark East Africa and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) signed in  June 2019 a Memorandum of Understanding, which provides the two parties with the framework to collaborate, with the aim of paving the way for stronger cooperation in helping countries increase their levels of intra-regional trade and investments. To cement that partnership, the two institutions successfully collaborated in an event organised by TradeMark Africa under the topic:  Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA): Women and Youth are Crucial to Africa's Economic Transformation. The session was held during the 2019 European Development Days meeting on the 18th-19thJune in Brussels, During the meeting, Andrew Mold, Acting Director of ECA in Eastern Africa explained the ambitious nature of the AfCFTA, saying that AfCFTA is not, as its name denotes, simply a 'free trade area'. "It encompasses ambitions to proceed to a single unified continental market", he said. Mold stressed that the elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers and harmonization of standards called for under the AfCFTA represent a unique opportunity to boost intra-regional trade and investment, allowing companies and farmers to tap into rapidly growing markets of Africa. "Sectors that are set to benefit the most are the labour-intensive manufacturing and services industries where women and youth are well represented," he emphasized. The Chief Technical Officer of TradeMark Africa, Allen Asiimwe, told the participants at the meeting that: 'Policymakers should start looking at the collective power...

Kigali 2 July 2019 (ECA) - In an effort to accelerate the implementation of the AfCFTA, Trademark East Africa and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) signed in June 2019 a Memorandum of Understanding, which provides the two parties with the framework to collaborate, with the aim of paving the way for stronger cooperation in helping countries increase their levels of intra-regional trade and investments. To cement that partnership, the two institutions successfully collaborated in an event organised by TradeMark Africa under the topic: Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA): Women and Youth are Crucial to Africa's Economic Transformation. The session was held during the 2019 European Development Days meeting on the 18th-19thJune in Brussels, During the meeting, Andrew Mold, Acting Director of ECA in Eastern Africa explained the ambitious nature of the AfCFTA, saying that AfCFTA is not, as its name denotes, simply a 'free trade area'. 'It encompasses ambitions to proceed to a single unified continental market', he said. Mold stressed that the elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers and harmonization of standards called for under the AfCFTA represent a unique opportunity to boost intra-regional trade and investment, allowing companies and farmers to tap into rapidly growing markets of Africa. 'Sectors that are set to benefit the most are the labour-intensive manufacturing and services industries where women and youth are well represented,' he emphasized. The Chief Technical Officer of TradeMark Africa, Allen Asiimwe, told the participants at the meeting that: 'Policymakers should start looking at the collective power...

At the time of writing, US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross was set to provide the details of the new US-Africa policy, Prosper Africa, on the sidelines of the US-Africa Business Council 2019. This new initiative seeks to accelerate two-way investment and trade with Africa as a way to advance the US’s competitive advantage. In the following article, I detail my thoughts on what the policy needs to include in order to fulfil the promise of the African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA). The place and timing of this announcement, on June 19-21 in Maputo, Mozambique, could not be more propitious. In March this year, Cyclone Idai made landfall in Mozambique, levelling a city of 400,000 and – along with Cyclone Kenneth – leaving in its wake $3.2bn worth of destruction. This was a foreshadowing of Africa’s acute vulnerability to the increasing intensity of extreme weather events and limited ability to adapt. Climate change compounds existing challenges of state fragility, infrastructure deficit, and high unemployment. Meanwhile, the CFTA went into force on 30 May. It carries the continent’s hopes and ambitions for connectivity, industrial development, job creation, and improved quality of life. The CFTA will be of mutual benefit to both the US and Africa. It will open new markets for American goods and services. When Ross takes the stage in Maputo, his speech will be the first substantive response by a major development partner to the latest vehicle on which Africans have pinned their hopes. This mix of challenge and...

Africa’s free-trade pact will help shift the continent away from its over-reliance on volatile commodity exports and boost manufacturing, according to the African Development Bankm (AfDB).Sectors where African products already have a competitive advantage have the most to gain from the deal that joins the markets of more than 50 countries, making it the largest free-trade zone in the world, AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina (pictured) said in an interview in Niger’s capital, Niamey.This was after Benin and Nigeria signed the African Continental Free-Trade Agreement at the weekend, paving the way for trade with reduced tariffs to start next July. “Manufacturing, trading in value-added products and strengthening supply chains will allow for markets to grow and for new markets to emerge,” Adesina said.“SMEs that account for 80 per cent of all trade on the continent will benefit, as well as the financial sector, as digital payments will be needed to transact.”Commodity exports dominate even in Africa’s two biggest economies, with mining production accounting for about half of South Africa’s shipments while crude oil generates 90 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign income.The mechanics of the deal now has to be negotiated.A digital system for payments converging one country’s currency to another member state’s is the most important mechanism to have in place before trading starts, Adesina said.That’s where the Economic Community of West African States’ plan to adopt a common trade currency will also help because it could reduce foreign-exchange risks, he said.Infrastructure gapAccess to the continental market and an increased focus on...

Local manufacturers are likely to benefit immensely from a newly implemented Africa-wide trade pact that provides access to a bigger market for their goods. The African Continent Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) protocol, launched at the Africa Union summit in Niger on Sunday after five years of deliberations, provides a single market of goods and services for 1.2 billion people with an aggregate Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of over $2 trillion (Sh200 trillion). ELIMINATE DEFICIT The adoption of the historic 55-nation agreement makes the whole continent a single market. Protocols will be aligned such that a Kenyan farmer can export avocado to Egypt duty-free, just as a Rwandese will be able to buy cocoa from Ghana. Kenyan manufacturers and exporters are upbeat that the trading bloc will be a boon for the country’s trade. Export Promotion Council chief executive Peter Biwott said Africa-wide trade, if well planned, could double the country’s exports, thereby eliminating the Sh1.15 trillion gap between exports and imports. “We import [goods worth] Sh1.7 trillion and we export Sh613 billion. The deficit can be eliminated if we increase our manufacturing and export enterprises. We target to get our exports to the mark of Sh2.3 trillion,” said Mr Biwott. Robust plan The government, he said, has a robust plan to make export trade efficient for existing enterprises as they recruit and train new ones in collaboration with the county governments. This is in a bid to scale up the range of products besides improving the manufacturing sector as a...

The success of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will be measured largely by its ability to change lives, reduce poverty and contribute to economic development in Africa. This is according to the ninth edition of the flagship Assessing Regional Integration in Africa report (ARIA IX) launched during the African Business Forum. Expounding on the report, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Secretary General Mukhisa Kituyi said that competition, investment and intellectual property rights are crucial requirements in the next phase of the agreement. He also urged the African business community to take ownership of the integration effort on the continent. The report highlights challenges facing regional integration which include limited energy and infrastructure development, insecurity and conflicts and limited financial resources among others. Going forward, the report says e-commerce is likely to be a significant driver and outcome of intra-African trade. “The public and private sectors are increasingly adopting e-commerce platforms. Governments deliver services through them, electronic marketplaces aggregate consumer and producer demand as well as trade-related services, traditional businesses have incorporated e-commerce into their business models and operations and individual entrepreneurs and small businesses use social media platforms to engage with market opportunities,” reads the report. Source: Capital Fm

Kenya could slowly be losing its strategic lead in East Africa due to the changing geopolitics and the newfound unity between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. Analysts suggest Kenya needs to adjust its foreign policy in light of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali becoming the regional point man to fix problems ranging from the Kenya-Somalia maritime dispute to the conflict in Sudan. TRADE HUB As an important trade hub for landlocked countries, Kenya has maintained its the middle-of-the path stance taken during the Cold War under the Non-Aligned Movement. As a result, Kenya has kept its allies like the US and China in investments, leadership of international organisations and tackling threats like terrorism, climate change and HIV/Aids. In 2014 Kenya developed its first written foreign policy since Independence in 1963, with five main pillars — peace diplomacy, economic diplomacy, diaspora diplomacy, environment diplomacy and cultural diplomacy. However, Kenya’s peace diplomacy is being overshadowed by organisations like the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) with Prime Minister Abiy as its chairman. According to Abdiwahab Sheikh Abdisamad, director and senior consultant at Southlink Consultants and a Horn of Africa political scientist at Kenyatta University, oil multinationals are lobbying for Somali interests in their own countries. He added that Kenyan foreign policy towards Somalia needs restructuring since the fight against Al Shabaab has attracted new stakeholders, with the Gulf crisis spilling over into Somalia. “Kenya should side either with the Saudi-led coalition or the Qatari and Turkey alliance. To date, Kenya has not sided...