NAIROBI: Kenya's economy is not all doom and gloom, after all. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the country's growth prospects and debt/gross domestic product (GDP) ratio are within acceptable levels. IMF further asserts that Kenya's current and projected growth prospects are better than those of her peers in the sub-Saharan African region. The Bretton Woods institution has tipped sub-Saharan Africa's economy to expand at 4.5 per cent in 2015. The institution has since downgraded Kenya's GDP growth for 2015 from 6.9 per cent to 6.5 per cent. Speaking during the launch of the Regional Economic Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya's IMF Resident Representative Armando Morales, downplayed fears that the country's debt-to-GDP ratio was spiraling out of control. "Debt in Kenya is classified by the IMF as low-distress risk. And to move to distress, you have to move through two other categories - moderate risk and high risk, and Kenya is below that. So it is very unlikely that the country will face a situation of distress in the coming years," said Mr Morales. no alarming bells He added the country's deficit is not alarming. He said:  "As long as the deficits for this year and the coming fiscal years remain projected at the same levels, then it is sustainable." He revealed that IMF has a programme in place to review the country's progress on maintenance of deficit.Morales' position was supported by Chris Kiptoo of Trademark East Africa who asked the Government to find a way to counter the...

Enligt FN:s världshandelsorganisation WTO finns det en stark koppling mellan ökad internationell handel, fler kvinnor i exportverksamheter och högre löner. Analyser av länderna i Östafrika pekar på att varje lands ekonomiska utveckling är direkt kopplat till kvinnornas företagande och till ökad handel med omvärlden.   Med stöd av den holländska regeringen och Kenyas utrikesminister Amina Mohammed, lanserade organisationen TMA nyligen "Women and Trade Programme" på 4,5 miljoner dollar fram till december 2016. Organisationen TMA eller Trade Mark East Africa arbetar för ett ökat välstånd i Östafrika genom ökad handel. Programmet riktar sig inledningsvis till 25 000 kvinnor och målet är att öka inkomsterna och förbättra försörjningen för kvinnor verksamma i handel samt i kvinnoägda företag. Arbetet fokuseras på att undanröja alla de formella och praktiska hinder som finns i samband med företagande och exportverksamhet vilket i sin tur kommer att ge Östafrikas kvinnor en tyngd och en mycket starkare röst i samhället.  I många afrikanska länder är kvinnor ofta småbönder som producerar till exempel majs, kassava, bomull och ris. Dessa kvinnor har en enorm potential för att bidra till ökad handel mellan de afrikanska länderna och med den globala marknaden. Under 2010 utgjorde kvinnor i utvecklingsländer 43 procent av arbetskraften inom jordbruket. Undersökningar visar att informell gränsöverskridande handel, som till stor del utförs av kvinnor, utgör en betydande del av den regionala gränsöverskridande handeln söder om Sahara. I Uganda står den informella exporten till de fem grannländerna för 231 700 000 dollar under 2006, vilket motsvarar 86 procent av Ugandas...

Recently, you reported that the latest World Bank Africa Pulse report placed Rwanda and Tanzania as rapidly growing economies at above 7%. This maybe source, but it still cannot explain why jobs are so hard to find, even for graduates. If growth is measured on jobs created then probably we may not be doing so well and something is wrong. Source: East African Business Week

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania - The Sub-Saharan Africa economies continue to implement reforms to improve the business climate for domestic entrepreneurs, with members of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) particularly active during the past year, says the World Bank Group’s annual ease of doing business measurement.  The ‘Doing Business 2016: Measuring Regulatory Quality and Efficiency’ report, released last week, records a total of 69 reforms in 35 economies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Of these, 14 of OHADA’s 17 member countries implemented 29 reforms. The report said reforms implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for about 30% of the 231 reforms implemented worldwide during the past year.  The report which was released by the World Bank last week said the region also boasted half of the world’s top 10 improvers, i.e. countries that implemented at least three reforms and moved up on the global rankings scale, with Uganda, Kenya, Mauritania, Benin and Senegal. “The region stood out in implementing reforms under the Getting Credit indicator. Of the 32 reforms made globally, 14 were carried out in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Kenya and Uganda making significant progress,” it stated. “Despite great improvements, governments in Sub-Saharan Africa will need to continue working on closing the gap in many key areas that impact the ease of doing business, especially increasing access to reliable electricity and providing effective commercial dispute resolution – two areas where the region scores the lowest globally,” said Rita Ramalho, Manager of the Doing Business project. On Getting Electricity,...

Kenya, as well as the other East African Community (EAC) countries, is fast emerging as an investment destination for multinational companies, following the establishment of a common market in 2010. The common market is attractive to investors because it currently has more than 153 million consumers. The European Union has been negotiating a bilateral agreement with the EAC — the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that could greatly impact the EAC market structure. Local firms stand to lose to foreign companies with greater capacity under the agreement in sectors such as agriculture, retail, horticulture, fisheries, textile and clothing, dairy, and meat if adequate safeguards are not established under the agreement. This brings to light the need to enhance a competitive economy within the EAC though the implementation of a regional competition law regime to protect consumers and small enterprises from unfair business practices. A competitive market would mean more choice, better quality and lower priced products for consumers, and easier market access for new firms. Moreover, it would mean that measures would be put in place to curb abuse of dominance, market sharing, and concentrated mergers and acquisitions by firms with substantial market share. The most effective way to achieve this would be for the EAC member states to enforce regional competition legislation and encourage the enactment of national competition laws and establishment of independent competition agencies. The EAC Competition Act, 2006 has already been ratified by member states, and national competition legislation enacted in all member countries except Burundi and...

Kampala. Organisations should invest more in mentoring women for top leadership position, says a senior United Nations official in Uganda.
Speaking at the fourth annual women leadership conference last week in Kampala, the United Nations Development Programme resident representative in Uganda, Ms Ahunna Eziakonwa-Onochie, said women are good at reforming and transforming organisations. She said investing in women is not just good for corporate businesses, but also good for growing economies around the world. 
“Invest in gender equity at work place. Institutions/companies that embrace gender diversity on their boards and in management often experience improved performance and profitability as a result,” she said. Source: Daily Monitor

On behalf of the British Government, I congratulate the Kenyan Government on the progress it has made this year to qualify as one of the global top ten reformers on the ease of doing business. The progress that Kenya is making against the Ease of Doing Business indicators may seem very remote from the lives of ordinary Kenyan businesses and households, but is actually very significant for three reasons. Firstly, it can result in increased domestic investment and jobs. Lets take the progressKenya has made in cutting all the red tape around starting a business, which is one of the reforms that the World Bank has recognised. In Mombasa this has brought the time down to get a Business License from 7 days to less than 1 hour, using an online platform. Evidence suggests that this can have a number of benefits: It increases the number of firms entering a market, which increases competition and productivity; it can also incentivize businesses to formalize, since the high costs of doing so are a major reason why Kenya has so many informal firms. This can then give them better access to finance and the opportunity to grow and create more jobs; and as more firms register for businesses, county governments also benefit from increased revenue. The Business permit is already the third most important source for revenue for Mombasa County. So one survey of the global evidence found that a reduction in the time to start a business by a similar amount...

The WTO released online on 29 October 2015 new editions of its key statistical publications: International Trade Statistics, Trade Profiles, World Tariff Profiles and Services Profiles. The four publications provide detailed breakdowns of the latest data on world trade. To mark the 20th anniversary of the WTO, International Trade Statistics 2015looks back at world trade from 1995 to the end of 2014. The publication features a variety of charts to highlight the most noteworthy trends in world trade over the past 20 years. Numerous tables provide more detailed data while a chapter on methodology explains how the data are compiled. The publication is available first in electronic format, with a print version to follow in mid-November. Data can be downloaded from the WTO web site in Excel and PDF formats and from a searchable database as well as from the WTO's International Trade and Market Access Data online application. French and Spanish versions of the publication will be available online shortly. We invite you to provide your feedback on the publication by filling in the ITS 2015 Survey. World Tariff Profiles 2015 provides a unique collection of data on tariffs imposed by WTO members and other economies. It is jointly published by the WTO, the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The first part of the publication provides summary tables showing the average tariffs imposed by individual economies. The second part provides a more detailed table for each economy, listing the tariffs it...

Reducing tariffs is a great start for increasing trade within Africa, but important non-tariff barriers (NTBs) must also be reduced in order to boost trade both within and outside of the continent. In fact, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa found the costs of NTBs in 2010 were higher than the costs of tariffs. The African Development Bank notes that, “while tariffs have progressively fallen, the key challenge to intra-African trade is non-tariff barriers that stifle the movement of goods, services and people across borders.” What sort of non-tariff barriers exist in Africa? Infrastructure across the continent is poor, discouraging the movement of goods and people. Less than a quarter of roads are paved, and those are often filled with potholes. It’s not uncommon for airfare with a layover in Europe or Asia to be cheaper than direct intra-continental flights. Meanwhile, seaports are crumbling and rail connection is paltry. “Thick borders” are also an issue, created by burdensome administrative procedures for clearing goods for import and export. Lines of trucks at the border lead to waits measured in days due to excessive bureaucratic red tape and burdensome administrative procedures. A report by Transparency International (TI) and TradeMark Africa (TMA) found that drivers at Rwanda-Tanzania customs stations spent an average of 72 hours obtaining customs clearance. World Bank economist Paul Brenton found that a truck serving supermarkets across a Southern Africa border may need to carry up to 1600 documents to comply with different countries’ requirements for permits, licenses, and other required...

According to the 2013 Society for International Development report, The Future of Inequality in East Africa, gains from EAC integration could be hampered by the growing inequality gap in the region. Half of the population of the EAC, representing 71 million people, lives on $1.6 a day. There is evidence that women bear the brunt of poverty but their empowerment is a central precondition for poverty’s elimination. According to the World Trade Organisation, there is a strong correlation between increased international trade and increases in female employment in exports, connection to markets and often higher wages in export-oriented industries. Analyses of several countries have even argued that each country’s economic development is “as much female-led as it is export-led.” Supported by the Netherlands government, and presided over by Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed, TradeMark Africa on October 15 launched the $4.5 million “Women and Trade Programme’’ to run till December 2016, with a second five-year phase of an additional $10 million to commence in 2017. Targeting 25,000 women in its first phase, the programme’s goal is to increase incomes and improve livelihoods for women traders and women-owned enterprises by strengthening the enabling environment for women traders, facilitating the removal of the internal impediments to trade faced by women and proactively promoting the ‘’voice’’ and participation of women in export and trade in East Africa. In many countries in Africa, the majority of small farmers are women, producing crops such as maize, cassava, cotton and rice. These have enormous potential...