Gambia became the 22nd African country to ratify the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement (AfCFTA), meaning the bill now has the minimum number of ratifications needed to come into effect. On March 21 Ethiopia became one of the last African nations to ratify AfCFTA, bringing the tally of endorsing countries to 21. The trade bloc spanning 49 countries with a combined GDP of $3trn, will facilitate inter-regional trade, boost growth and help to alleviate poverty, its supporters say. The news was tweeted by the African Union Commissioner for Trade and Industry Albert Muchanga: “Good news! The Parliament of The Gambia has APPROVED ratification of #AfCFTA Agreement making us meet the minimum threshold. “The AfCFTA market is being born and is one step ready for launch of its operational phase in July this year. The agreement, signed by 49 of the 55 African Union nations in March last year, will dodge a patchwork of trade regulations and tariffs that make intra-African commerce costly, time-consuming and cumbersome. Its promotion of tariff-free movement of goods, people and services across the continent is also expected to favour SME’s, who account for 80% of Africa’s employment and 50% of its GDP, according to the World Bank. But skeptics have pointed to the impending challenges of uniting countries with the greatest level of income disparity between them, under the umbrella of one trade bloc. For example, over 50 percent of Africa’s cumulative GDP is contributed by Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa, while Africa’s six sovereign island nations collectively contribute...

Rwanda Standards Board has ventured into a financial agreement with Trademark East Africa on April 1 in Kigali. Followed by the agreement, Rwanda Standards Board has received USD 1 million to assist in continuing global best practices and provide improved services to its clients to enhance food safety and trade. According to the agreement between Rwanda Standards Board and Trademark East Africa, it will benefit farmers, pack houses, millers and transporters to enable them attain international standard requirements in food safety of local agricultural products. Hence, they will be enabled to access a wide range of markets both regionally and globally. Rwanda Standards Board (RSB) will utilize the fund in interventions such as automation of RSB processes to improve service delivery and increase customer satisfaction. It will also be utilized to develop a seven-year strategic plan that will guide RSB in keeping up with global best practices in standards for international sanitary and phytosanitary standards. "We want to ensure that we support standards and certifications to leverage the trading platforms and the improved physical and digital infrastructure," Country Director of Trademark East Africa, Patience Mutesi opined. Source: Devdiscourse

The Rwanda Ministry of Trade and Industry (MINICOM) and TradeMark Africa (TMA) have announced the official completion of Rusizi and Rubavu Cross Border Markets. The two organisations signed a Memorandum of Understanding to symbolise completion and official handover of the markets from TMA to the government of Rwanda. The handover marks opening the market space to traders for business. TMA partnered with MINICOM and Rubavu and Rusizi District administration to oversee construction of the markets for the last 1 year. United Kingdom’s Department for Foreign Development (DFID) and Embassy of Belgium in Rwanda provide funding of $ 3, 302 ,255.35 and 2,165,250.17 for Rubavu and Rusizi respectively. Rusizi market is all-inclusive with 186 spaces for trading in goods while Rubavu has 192 spaces. Markets facilities include cold rooms, Creche, warehousing, banks and forex bureaus, sanitary facilities as well as service parking. These cross-border markets directly respond to Rwanda’s National Cross Border Trade strategy that calls for the development of CBMS to promote trade between Rwanda and neighbouring countries; and it is expected that the markets will promote cross border trade between Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo. The MOU stipulates that TradeMark Africa (TMA) will provide a two-year technical assistance support that will ensure efficient operationalisation of the market and will also support the continuous monitoring of emerging lessons and results of the markets. This will be a critical building block towards the long-term sustainability of the outcomes of the programme. The handover paves way for MINICOM to set up...

TOP African Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have called for putting resources together in order to create an African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA). The CEOs shared their insights in the just ended Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda, saying that unity, cooperation and economic integration between African countries are the way to go for the continent that is seeking to improve its economy. They voiced the sentiments in a ’CEO Talk’ session that hosted four top African CEOs - Mr Tewolde GebreMariam, CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, Ms Diane Karusisi, the CEO of Bank of Kigali; Mr Tony Attah, the CEO of Nigeria LNG and Mr Antonio Nunes, the CEO of Angola Cables. Ms Karusisi said that it was important to speak with one voice and that the CFTA demonstrates how Africa is coming together as a continent, at a time when other continents are finding other ways to develop themselves. “The CFTA is changing the narrative because people are looking at Africa as a bloc,where everyone needs a share of what they can do on the continent. So we have here the opportunity to say we are a united bloc and these are our terms, this is how we want it,” Ms Karusisi was quoted as saying in a conference report delivered after the forum and made available to the ‘Daily News’. The CEO of the first Rwandan bank commended the forum for raising awareness in people around the implementation of the CFTA and the intra-growth of trade and investment....

Yesterday,Israel opened its embassy in Rwanda after 50 years since the two countries established diplomatic relations. This is the first time Israel is opening an Embassy in an African nation in eight years after Ghana’s in 2011 and their 11th on the continent. This follows a series of meetings between President Paul Kagame and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which they agreed, among other things, to open an Israel embassy in Kigali. The New Times’Julius Bizimungu had exclusive interview with Yuval Rotem, the Director General of Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs on wide ranging issues, including Israel relations with Rwanda and Africa in general, the controversial refugee issues as well as trade between Rwanda and Israel. Below are excerpts: Your Prime Minister has met the Rwandan President many times in the past two years. What does this signify? It means trust between leaders, trust between countries, and above all, it is an interest of both countries to take their relationship into a different direction that benefits their people. It also means that both countries are ready for the next move. Within this context, we have now our embassy opened here which is a better symbolism and better practicability, with desire on Israel side, to move this relationship forward and see what areas of cooperation, of collaboration and above all, what we can advance in the interest of both countries that benefits you (Rwanda) and us (Israel), in economic area, in the political area, and the strategic area. That is...

It’s a shame that at a time when the entire African continent has placed its gaze on achieving Continental Free Trade Area, the EAC is embroiled in a crisis that is detrimental to the economic welfare of millions and an economically integrated region. It’s even worse that the squabbling is premised not on any clear policy differences, normative misunderstandings, or legal complexities with regard to EAC treaty but on personality differences between Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame. The overriding factor is that the crisis in great part boils down to the two leaders’ poor democratic credentials and authoritarian tendencies. Kagame and Museveni are known to stifle opposition parties in their respective countries, thus the reason why they constantly live in fear of real and perceived armed dissidents working against their regimes. This kind of blame game would be less likely if they had allowed opposition parties to operate freely. In essence, the discord between the leaders of Uganda and Rwanda on one hand, and Burundi and Rwanda on the other is likely to lead to uncertainty in the economic and political future of EAC, as long as they continue to hold on to power and limit democratic playing field for opposition parties in their respective countries.. The challenge to EAC, however, is that these claims and counterclaims hamper the harmonious process of EAC integration as it sows seeds of discord between leaders and fear among EAC citizens. This is further compounded by the weak nature of EAC’s secretariat,...

African industry captains see a silver lining in the rocky exit of the United Kingdom from the EU (Brexit) at a time when a continental free trade area is about to come into force. A survey by Deloitte on how companies are prepared to exploit the broad market of $3 trillion and a population of more than 1.2 billion people found that three-quarters of executives polled were confident of benefiting from the African Continental Free Trade Area and that competition was the least of their worries. Instead they were anxious about how the business climate was cyclically affected by elections, small fragmented markets, inadequate financing, high cost of financial transactions and energy. While most have a strategic plan on integration, the survey found that it was focused on diversification, going Pan-African and proof of concept approach, where experiments are done in segments and countries before being scaled up across businesses and terrain. Interestingly, few were thinking of going global because of uncertainties surrounding world trade, with the UK about to exit the EU, and China, US and Europe always one drastic decision away from a trade war. The UK Trade Commissioner for Africa Emmah Wayde-Smith, however, told The EastAfrican they have, over the past two years worked to ensure continuity of trade with Africa, irrespective of what form Brexit takes. Prime Minister Theresa May had pledged to quit if her proposal is adopted. It had already failed twice among seven other options, creating more anxiety over Africa’s access to the UK market....

It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention. It is an obvious saying, perhaps, and maybe even cliché, but nonetheless profound. It is during the most difficult situations that human beings are at their most ingenious best. If proof were needed of this, the current spat between Rwanda and Uganda is it. While not exactly inventing new things, Rwandans have found new ways of doing them as a result of Uganda’s unfriendly actions. They have had to get out of the comfort zone, away from the accustomed way of doing things and started venturing into places and fields new. This is a choice Uganda has forced on them and in the process opened their eyes to other possibilities. In that sense they have come to a new thinking about their existence as a nation and are fashioning new ways to cope with the new reality During the past two decades or so, Uganda has been placing obstacles in Rwanda’s way. The list of those obstacles is long as the current state of relations has revealed. For example, there are instances of reneging on projects agreed upon under the Northern Corridor Projects Initiative (NCPI), such as the extension of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) from Kampala to Kigali, but which Uganda now says it will rather extend to Juba, South Sudan, first and maybe consider the extension to Rwanda later. Another has been the deliberate slowing down of other NCPI projects as to make their implementation impossible, such...

Rwanda Standards Board(RSB) has received $1 million (approximately Rwf900m) to help it keep up with global best practices and offer improved services to its clients to enhance food safety and trade. The signing of the financing agreement took place yesterday between Trademark East Africa and RSB in Kigali. According to officials, it will benefit farmers, pack houses, millers and transporters to enable them attain international standard requirements in food safety of local agricultural products, hence enabling them to access a wide range of markets both regionally and internationally. The money will also be used in interventions such as automation of RSB processes to improve service delivery and increase customer satisfaction. It will also be used to develop a seven year strategic plan that will guide RSB in keeping up with global best practices in standards for international sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS). “We want to ensure that we support standards and certifications to leverage the trading platforms and the improved physical and digital infrastructure,” said Patience Mutesi, TMA Country Director. Officials also said the emphasis was put in agriculture given that the sector accounts for 33 per cent of Rwanda’s GDP and employs 72 per cent of the working population. Also under the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1), the export sector should grow by 17 per cent annually and agriculture is one of the main players. “As productivity increases and regional and global tariff barriers are eliminated, standards and SPS issues tend to rise in prominence, given countries’ commitment to...

It is our collective responsibility to ensure that Africa is not left behind in the digital revolution that is sweeping across the globe. Our focus should not be about just being part of this revolution, we should be leading it. Come this May, the 2019 Transform Africa Summit, the most important gathering of global ICT minds and leaders on the continent will convene in Kigali, Rwanda, to discuss how Africa can leverage digital innovations to drive economic growth and long term development. This year’s Transform Africa Summit will take place from May 14 to 17, 2019 at the iconic Kigali Convention Centre (KCC) and it is expected to bring together over 4,000 delegates from over 90 countries across the world. The Transform Africa summit is Smart Africa’s flagship event which was put in place as a vehicle to put ICT at the centre of Africa’s socio-economic agenda. This year’s summit will be the 5th edition and will run under the theme “Boosting Africa’s Digital Economy”. This particular summit is exciting for us because it comes at a time when the continent is holding candid conversations on how our countries can harness technology and digital innovations to boost their economies and usher an era of sustained development. The timing is optimal because today, the world is embracing the fact that technological disruption has impacted on the way we do things. It comes at a time when the world is coming together to drive the digital economy agenda. This is very important...