TRANSPORT costs along the Northern Corridor have significantly dropped in the last three years making it the most efficient route in the East and Central Africa region, latest data show. According to the East Africa Logistics Survey 2015, the average cost of transporting a forty-foot container from Mombasa to Nairobi is down dropped to $1,000 (Sh102,360) last year from a high of $ 1,300 (Sh133,069) in 2011. Transport cost from Mombasa to Kampala came down to $2,500 (Sh255,901) from $3,400 (Sh348,026) over the same period. This is lower compared to the Central Corridor mainly served by the port of Dar-es-Salaam, where rates recorded a marginal increase, placing Mombasa as the cheapest entry point for goods into the region. Data by the Shippers Council of East Africa shows the cost of transport from Dar es Salaam to Kampala have increased from $2,507(Sh256,618) in 2011 to $4,500 (Sh460,623) in 2015. This has been coupled with low compliance at weighbridges, time taken at the data processing centres and cargo dwell time at the port. “The general drop in price can be attributed to a drop in fuel prices and also an increase in the supply of trucks, which lead to cut throat competition among the truckers. Northern Corridor is currently cheaper than the Central Corridor to various destinations in the East and Central African region,” the report released last week reads. The route with the highest rate of decline was Mombasa-Juba at 44 per cent, dropping from a high of $9,800 (Sh1.0 million)...

For several years, experts from the three largest trading blocs in Africa — the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) — were locked in intense negotiations over a free trade agreement whose aim is to bring about a unified and liberalized single market. The talks finally bore fruit on 10 June 2015 when 26 African countries signed the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) agreement in Cairo, Egypt. Under this agreement, all the 26 countries, with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of about $1.3 trillion and a population of 565 million, will merge into a common market and eliminate tariff lines and trade barriers. The participating countries will benefit from liberalized intra-regional trade, which is expected to boost the flow of goods and services. When implemented, the free trade area will constitute about half of Africa’s GDP, half of its population and will cover a combined landmass of 17 million square kilometres, about the size of Russia. At the moment, however, only three of Africa’s eight regional economic communities are participating in the TFTA. Non-participating economic blocs include the Arab Maghreb Union, the Economic Community of West African States, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the Economic Community of Central African States and the Community of Sahel-Saharan States. For now, these blocs are not participating in this new initiative for political and economic reasons. The Abuja Treaty of 1995 signed by 51 African countries mandates all regional...

MORE than 600 regional and international industry leaders are scheduled to convene in Dar es Salaam next week for the Agribusiness Congress East Africa to share best practices and discuss strategic plans relating to regional growth and market accessibility in the East African agricultural corridors. The congress, pencilled for January 27 - 28, offers a platform for investors, donor community, input suppliers, government, farmers of all scales and all professionals involved in the agricultural value chain, looking for sustainable cost effective solutions, trade partners and opportunities that will set East Africa into an agricultural hub. “Participants will discuss strategic plans relating to regional growth, market accessibilities in the East African agricultural corridors and share best practices to overcome the critical impacts of climate change within the region,” said the Agribusiness Congress East Africa Marketing Manager, Ms Melissa Bender, in a statement to the press. According to Ms Bender, the Agricultural Council of Tanzania (ACT) would host the third annual Agribusiness Congress East Africa under the theme, “Driving regional growth and accessibility in East Africa”. Ms Bender said a unique feature of Agribusiness Congress East 2016 conference is the roundtable discussions between the representatives of the public and private sector, presenting each industry with its own challenges and requirements in an interactive Business to Business (B2B) intimate dialogue. She said discussions will focus on enabling frameworks of land reforms, accessing finance and identifying investment partners, modernising smallholder farming, Climate actions and post-harvest loss, processing and storing transport logistics, market access and...

Shore handling charges at the key east Africa gateway ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam increased in 2015, while port dwell times for cargo continued to languish well below global standards. The charge for handling a 40 ft import container at the port of Mombasa, Kenya, rose from USD105 in 2014 to USD160 in 2015 and from USD90 to USD135 at Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. The charge for handling a 40 ft export container at Mombasa rose from USD56 in 2014 to USD80 in 2015, and fell from USD90 to USD20 at Dar es Salaam, figures released by the Shippers Council of Eastern Africa (SCEA) show. Charges for handling transit containers rose from USD85 to USD125 (import) and from USD40 to USD125 (export) at Mombasa, and from USD80 to USD95 (import) and from USD80 to USD210 (export) at Dar es Salaam. “Dar es Salaam has higher shore handling charges than Mombasa for transit exports of teus. However, Mombasa has higher rates for transit imports. Overall, there has been an increase in port charges between 2014 and 2015,” SCEA said in its annual Logistics Performance Survey. While charges increased, port dwell times remained poor and indicated a multitude of inefficiencies at both ports. For the purpose of the survey, port dwell time is defined as the time elapsed from when the cargo enters the port to when it leaves the port after all permits are obtained and all fees are paid. The survey said there was a 36.25% increase in port...

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA – The Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) has started a crackdown to get rid of substandard products in the local market.  “We will work together with local government authorities to get rid of these products, it should be noted that used tyres have been cited as among factors causing motor accidents in the country. Even new tyres have expiry date of eight years even if they have not been used,” Joseph Masikitiko,  the TBS Director General said last week. The present crackdown includes targeting local and foreign shipments before they reach the market. According to TBS, the shipments targeted comprise petroleum and their products that are shipped into the country and that defaulters may be subjected to a fine of Tsh.50 million ($22,727) or face a three-year jail term. Masikitiko said the watchdog recently rejected 38,000 metric tonnes of gasoline which did not meet the required local quality standards. “The tanker from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) owned by MT Ridgebury John B Company was prohibited from offloading the disputed petrol after arriving at the Dar es Salaam port,” Masikitiko said. He said the lab inspection results showed that the cargo had three unacceptable chemical elements namely; Oxygenates, Research Octane Number (RON) and Benzene which cause damage and also inefficiency to engines and also pose health risks to humans and the environment. Masikitiko said the company was directed to ship the consignments back to its port of origin at their own cost as the consignment failed to meet...

CHINA plans to develop a free trade area with African countries - to increase the continent’s exports to the far-east nation and offset the huge trade imbalance, a top official has said. Prof Hu Hailiang, the Vice-Chairman of the Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education in China, told reporters in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the envisaged free trade area falls under its new fiveyear development plan slated to begin this year. The free trade area agreement is expected to increase exports of goods from Africa to offset huge trade imbalance between the continent and China, he said “China will negotiate with individual African countries and regional blocks to develop free trade area agreement to promote exchange of goods and services and investments,” he said at a press conference organised after a seminar on new China. China’s policymakers are compiling the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), whose proposal was adopted at the Fifth Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in October last year. The new five-year national socio-economic development will charter an explicit blueprint for the country’s development over the next five years - and provide more opportunities for the development of other countries. China is Africa’s largest trading partner, surpassing the United States in 2009. According to Brookings Education Institution, in 2012, China’s trade with Africa reached $198.5 billion, while U.S.-African trade in 2012 was $99.8 billion. China’s trade with Africa is only 5 per cent of its global trade total. More than 80...

KAMPALA, UGANDA - Most of us dread sitting for examination papers. The East African Community (EAC) at Summit level of Heads of State should be no exception. There is a big problem in the neighbourhood. This year the EAC will have to sit the paper on ‘relevance of good governance in the integration process’, because the Burundi situation is getting out of hand. Failure will be a huge setback in the aspirations for a Common Market. Success however, will make the EAC that much stronger and more competitive as a investment destination. Burundi is tittering at the edge of an abyss. Foreign investor confidence is being tested. Uncertainity does not attract money. It simply scares it away, but the Burundi opposing parties remain stuck in their uncompromising positions. This has put the rest of the EAC in a muddle. Worse still, all efforts at peace-making have been soundly rebuffed, including the manhandling of EAC Secretary General, Amb. Richard Sezibera last October. The African Union has fared no better. The Burundi government was scalding in December when the AU mooted a force of 5000. There is nothing as frustrating as being caught up in a situation that is not of your own making. Both Rwanda and Tanzania have had to take in refugess, which  puts an added strain on their national budgets. A quick response came from Germany, who offered $18 million in appreciation of Tanzania’s efforts to handle the influx. Other help is hard to come by. The United Nations High...

Recently, Tanzania President John Pombe-Magufuli ordered foreigners, particularly those without work permits, to surrender their jobs to locals pronto. This hard-hitting edict is a direct consequence of the Non-Citizens (Employment Regulations) Act, passed by Tanzania’s Parliament during its April - June 2015 session. The Act tightened rules for subsidiaries of multinational companies operating in Tanzania intent on recruiting expatriate employees. The hope is that showing foreigners the door would automatically pave the way for employment of Tanzanian youth. While it is the duty of the state to secure and protect the livelihoods of its citizens, the sweeping, if punitive, action heralded by the presidential diktat determined to show foreigners working in Tanzania the door enmass is regrettable. In fact, I highly doubt that such a decision would serve the best interests of any of the East African Community member countries let alone Tanzania’s. Well, nationalism propped on simplistic populism may register transient dividends for demagogic leaders but not for long-term benefits particularly in a regional bloc that ought to be aiming at closer integration and synergetic existence. Ultimately, it remains Tanzania’s sovereign right to make policies that serve the interests of her citizens best. Whichever way you view it, President Magufuli is well within his powers to make decisions that promote the welfare of his countrymen and women. At the same time, Tanzania’s resources and economy must serve its nationals before they benefit foreigners. However, 21st Century statecraft and international relations calls for more sacrifices and concessions rather than knee-jerk...

Nairobi — At some stage, both sides in Burundi's increasingly bloody political crisis are likely to be sitting across the table from one another in Arusha, Tanzania, looking to agree a political settlement. Arusha, a laidback cosmopolitan city in northern Tanzania, has been the traditional venue for negotiating some of East Africa's most intractable conflicts. It was where the Burundian government and the opposition CNARED were supposed to be heading last week for talks mediated by the African Union and the East African Community, until the government pulled out its representatives on the grounds that they couldn't meet with "criminals" and "terrorists". Such contretemps are nothing new. After all the purpose of mediation is to put together people who don't like each other, sometimes with murderous intensity. The Arusha Accords, aimed at resolving Rwanda's civil war, took a year to hash out: the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement for Burundi (the document CNARED accuses the current government of trashing) took two years. In the case of South Sudan, where a peace agreement was signed in Arusha last year and then promptly torn up by both sides, who knows? Why Arusha? It's ever so slightly schizophrenic. It draws legions of tourists visiting the Serengeti national park, Ngorongoro conservation area, and Mount Kilimanjaro. But alongside the backpackers in sandals and bush camouflage - though rarely literally - are the men and women in power suits representing the other face of Arusha, that of a regional diplomatic hub. It's the headquarters of the...

In the minds of many, the container trade between east and southern Africa forms an altogether insignificant trade. That may be true if comparing it with a high volume area such as the Far East. Yet this region’s combined port throughput is approaching eight million TEUs, which is technically more than the whole of the Australian continent, and there is so much scope for growth in the 23 countries with their 437 million inhabitants. Dynamar has recently issued its latest report in its Container Markets and Trades series: East & Southern Africa (worldwide) Container Trades. The report highlights that: East and southern Africa’s container volumes have grown by nine percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since 2010 China’s exports to East Africa is expected to increase by 91 percent by 2020 The area is experiencing strong growth, rising incomes, falling poverty and economic diversification Transit cargo from Mombasa is growing at an average of seven percent; current share is 30 percent Inland transportation costs are reaching 77 percent of export value Sub Saharan Africa’s largest port is Durban, South Africa Somali-attributed pirate attacks back from 2010’s 220 to ten (too many) in 2014 The three main African regions covered in the report consist of 23 countries: 
East Africa: coastal Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania, plus seven landlocked countries
Indian Ocean: Madagascar, Mauritius, La Réunion (France) and three more island states 
Southern Africa: littoral Mozambique, South Africa and Namibia, plus four non-coastal nations Dirk Visser, Senior Shipping Consultant and Managing Editor DynaLiners, says: “Imagine that the...