President Paul Kagame has described the existing relationship between China and Africa as one based on equality, mutual respect and “a commitment to a shared wellbeing.” The Head of State was addressing leaders from across Africa and China at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit that is underway in the Chinese capital, Beijing. The forum, seventh of its kind, is a platform where all African countries and China meet periodically to see how to collectively strengthen ties with an aim of building a shared future. “The relationship between Africa and China is based on equality, mutual respect, and a commitment to shared well-being. This was our starting point eighteen years ago, when the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was established,” said President Kagame, who is also the Chairperson of the African Union. According to the President, ever since the first forum, China’s actions have demonstrated that a stronger Africa is seen as an opportunity to invest in, rather than as a problem or a threat. “China has continued to lead the way in showing what is lost in not engaging and partnering with Africa,” he said. The President said that the Forum has grown into a powerful engine of cooperation, fully aligned with Africa’s Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals. Since its establishment 18 years ago, FOCAC has achieved a significant mark of China-Africa cooperation, with trade volume between China and Africa amounting to 170 billion U.S. dollars in 2017. This represents a major increase from the just over...

Arusha. Tunduma border post between Tanzania and Zambia is being upgraded into a One Stop Border Post (OSBP) to fast-track increased movement of people and goods. It will operate along the same pattern as the recently opened 15 similar border posts already established within the East African Community (EAC) bloc. Two other jointly operated border posts linking the region with neighbouring blocs are being set up at Moyale along the Kenya/Ethiopia border and Gisenyi on Rwanda/DR Congo boundary. "New OSBPs are being established to link the Community with other blocs because our trade is not limited to East Africa", said Stephen Analo from the EAC secretariat. He told officials from Tanzania and Kenya manning the Sirari/Isebania border route last week that EAC the new unified borders would play the same role; enhancing trade. "If we don't enhance trade with our neighbours, we will end up with goods clogged at outer borders", he said at the end training of the officials manning border operations. Mr. Analo, a tax expert, urged officers from the two countries where such facilities are being set up to cooperate fully so as to tap in the benefits of unified border operations such as increased tax collections. "Integrated border coordination is not a foreign concept. It is the same all over the world", he said, noting that they are necessary due to increased movement of goods, services and people across EA borders. At the jointly operated border posts, Immigration, Customs, bureaux of standards, phytosanitary inspections, goods clearance...

Increasing trade between the EU and the ACP (African-Caribbean-Pacific), particularly African countries, lay at the heart of the ambition of the Cotonou Agreement. That was supposed to be embodied by regional Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) with the EU. But it has not worked out that way. Eight percent of EU exports and less than 7% of EU imports came to and from Africa in 2016. Slow to be negotiated, in large part because many African regional blocs felt the European Commission was pushing them to open up access to their markets to European firms, only one EPA has been successfully ratified, with the six-member Southern African Development Community (SADC). No way, EPA The sense that African countries won’t allow themselves to be pushed around by the EU on trade is held by Carlos Lopes, appointed in July as the African Union’s High Representative on the post-Cotonou talks. “The reality is clear that the EPAs were badly negotiated and apart from the SADC, most of them are not implemented,” he told EURACTIV. He added that the deadlines attached to agreeing and ratifying the EPAs were “artificial to give an impression that they were the only way to get access to the European market.” Many African countries can already trade largely duty-free with the EU as ‘least favoured nations’ and felt that the EPAs offered them little. Tanzanian officials have described the proposed EU EPA with the East African Community as “skewed and exploitative”, and such views are shared by a number of...

China will this week host a forum where development projects for the next three years will be discussed. African leaders are going to Beijing for the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC) Summit, hoping to get financing for their mega infrastructure projects. The summit themed "China and Africa: Towards an Even Stronger Community with a Shared Future through Win-Win Cooperation," is meant to link the Belt and Road Initiative with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the AU’s Agenda 2063 and individual countries' development plans. But it comes at a time when some African countries are grappling with an external debt burden and a trade balance favouring Beijing. Credit rating firms and global financial institutions have been advising against taking out further loans, instead recommending fiscal consolidation to arrest the ballooning debt. Kenya, for instance, had taken over $5 billion from China as at the end of March 2018 while Uganda owed China $1.6 billion. Kenya’s National Treasury has recently been under pressure to slow down the growth of public debt, with the International Monetary Fund raising its concerns. Even then, East African Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda — who is also the African Union chairman — Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya are expected to attend the summit and seek financing for their joint infrastructure projects, particularly the standard gauge railway. Kenya is looking to complete the second last phase of the line and Uganda will be inking a deal for its first phase from Malaba...

Rwanda’s exports accelerated in the first half of this year, driven by Government’s efforts to support the Made-in-Rwanda agenda as well as good performance of non-traditional exports, helping to bridge the country’s trade deficit. National Bank of Rwanda statistics, which were released yesterday, show that Rwanda generated $463.16 million from exports in the first six months of 2018, up from $375.91 million in the same period last year. The improvement was also attributed to a positive international economic outlook characterised by better prices. Traditional exports such as coffee, tea, minerals and pyrethrum grew by 28.7 raking in $150.29 million compared to $116.74 million in 2017. Of the traditional exports, minerals registered the largest growth, driven by good prices on the international market. Coffee prices also improved from $2.66 per kilogramme to $2.76 per kilogramme as exporters are now exporting fully washed coffee. However, tea prices on the international market slumped by 2.3 per cent. Local exporters increased supply to offset possible losses. Tea exports generated $51.09 million. Non-traditional exports such as milling products, minerals (Coltan, cassiterite and wolfram), iron and steel as well as flowers grew by 19.1 per cent. The improvement was largely driven by milling industry which raked in $33.8 million as production by local stakeholders as well as increased demand from DRC. Exports of flowers, mainly to the Netherlands, also grew, owing to new investments that boosted production. Government incentives to support the Made-in-Rwanda initiative drove growth of textiles by 158.8 per cent. Imports also rose by...

The East African Community (EAC) is, probably, the most integrated regional bloc in Africa. Earlier this month, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda traveled to Tanzania to meet his counterpart, Dr. John Pombe Magufuli. As reported by the media, the two leaders, among other things, discussed “issues affecting trade relations” between their two countries and in the region. Uganda and Tanzania are two among the six EAC Partner States. The Treaty for Establishment of the East African Community (“EAC Treaty”) was signed on 30 November 1999 and entered into force on 7 July 2000. The EAC integration is still forming. Key pillars such as the common market and the monetary union are yet to take their shapes. So, it’s not very surprising that there are “issues”. Despite marked successes in the customs union, there are several other areas that are not in harmony with each other among the Partner States. One such area is the tax systems. For example, some Partner States levy the excise tax on ad valorem basis (monetary value) while others levy on a specific basis (quantity). Also, Partner States offer tax incentives (say 10 years tax holiday) and others don’t. Capital gains are taxable in some Partner States and exempt in others. What is the implication of all these differences on the free movement of capital, goods, and services? Lack of a certain level of harmonization of the national tax systems and tax policies is among the issues that may be impeding implementation of the common...

THE East African Community (EAC) looks forward to having success stories of the youth, who engage in agriculture for economic prosperity. EAC Deputy Secretary General Christophe Bazivamo said having the successful youths would enable others to learn. He was speaking in Dar es Salaam during a two-day regional validation workshop on best youth agribusiness models in EAC partner states, which started in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday. "If properly utilised, the youth have the potential to boost productivity and strengthen inclusive economic growth," he stated. He said in this new initiative, the EAC would be collaborating with Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to address youth unemployment through agriculture. "Engaging the youth in an agri-food chain is increasingly seen as a viable solution to youth unemployment, food insecurity, rural poverty and distress migration for EAC," he remarked. According to EAC and FAO, the youth represent 48 million of the total population of the EAC partner states in the next 20 years. The number is expected to grow to 82 million. The EAC senior official urged the youth in the EAC bloc to change the mind-sets and appreciate what they had. For his part, Mr Mohamed Aw- Dahir, senior officer (programme and partnership) in the sub-regional office for Eastern Africa (SFE) said as part of FAO commitment to supporting member states to achieve sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) they had also decided to support the youth in agriculture to ensure no one was left behind. Mr Aw-Dahir added that they would enable the...

LONDON – Add Africa to the locations Theresa May is hoping will help shore up Britain’s post-Brexit future. The prime minister on Tuesday promised to tweak her government’s generous aid budget to open doors for UK companies on the continent of a billion people. The longer-term shift to “trade not aid” will have to be dramatic if it is to compensate for the setback of severing close ties with the European Union. There are strong reasons for Britain to promote African development. As May noted in a speech in Cape Town, a more prosperous continent is less likely to breed international jihadists or economic migrants eager to sneak into Europe. The economic rationale, however, looks more suspect. Total trade with Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya – the stops on May’s three-country trip – amounted to £13.1 billion in 2016, according to UK government figures. That’s less than 2.5% of the £554 billion in goods and services that Britain exchanged with the European Union in the same year. In other words, if UK trade with the bloc drops by 2% after it departs, commerce with the three countries – which include Africa’s two largest economies – would have to almost double to make up the difference. At the moment any pickup looks a stretch. Over the last decade, the value of UK-Africa trade has grown at around 1% a year – a trend that is likely to continue given the subdued economic trajectories in South Africa and Nigeria. Besides, the EU...

With the United Kingdom’s (UK) departure from the European Union (EU) imminent, it is no surprise that the UK is currently on a charm offensive, with a view to deepen and strengthen its global partnerships. Going by the UK Prime Minister’s currently ongoing tour of Africa, where she intends to meet and hold trade talks with three African Heads of State, Africa is top on the UK’s global agenda. Evidently, with 16 per cent of the world’s population, but only three per cent of global goods trade, Africa is heralded as the containing untapped trade potential. In support of its new focus on trade partnerships with the African continent, Mrs Teresa May announced an additional GBP 4 billion in British trade and investment support earmarked for Africa, with an expectation that a similar amount will be matched by the private sector. In her pledge, the UK PM signalled a shift in UK’s trade relationships with the African continent. Traditionally, critics have noted with concern that the UK tends to prioritize financial aid targeted at eradicating poverty in the African continent – financial aid that in the long run has not concretely benefit the African continent. Now, with a potential hard Brexit looming in the horizon, the United Kingdom hopes to focus on long-term economic growth and development of the African continent, with the hope that a rapidly industrializing Africa will stand to plug any potential trade deficit resultant of a hard or no-deal Brexit. Indeed, a rapidly industrialising Africa is...

Dar es Salaam. The government is creating a viable space for encouraging agricultural innovative activities in a bid to attract more youth into the sector, which employs about 80 per cent of Tanzanians. The remark was made by the policy advisor for the ministry of Agriculture (Food Security and Co-operatives), Mr Revelian Ngaiza said on Tuesday August 29 when presenting a report in a meeting organised by the East African Community (EAC) in Dar es Salaam. Mr Ngaiza, who represented the ministry’s permanent secretary, said the government had identified the innovative approach as a powerful tool of encouraging the youth to take up agriculture as their main economic activity. “In our two-year pilot project for identifying the challenges making the youth shun agriculture, they have discovered that innovations in agriculture were crucial in attracting the youth to engage in agriculture,” he said. In his opening remarks to such meeting on Best Youth Agri-business Models in East Africa, the EAC deputy secretary general, Mr Christophe Bazivamo, said that since many young people do not regard agriculture in a positive way, there is a need to use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to attract them. “ICT can be improved let us say to integrate music and sports in agricultural activities for attracting more youths in this sector,” said Mr Bazivamo. He cited the case of the use of ICT in agri-businesses such as marketing of agricultural produce, which is attracting more youths in Kenya. The EAC senior officer for the UN Food...