The value of Kenya's main exports declined by 3.1 per cent to Sh137.5 billion in the first quarter of 2019 compared to Sh141.9 billion registered in a similar period in 2018 . Tea, horticulture, apparel and clothing accessories and unroasted coffee top as the country's leading foreign exchange earners. According to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, the decline was  on account of decreased revenues from tea and titanium ores and concentrates. Exports of titanium ores and tea declined to Sh3 billion from Sh4.19 billion, and to Sh31.37 billion from Sh40.09 billion respectively. “The reduction in international price of tea partly contributed to the decrease in the value of tea exported which dropped from Sh307.71 per kilogramme to Sh237.54 per kg over the period,” it stated. The data also attributed the drop in earnings from domestic exports of tea to Pakistan to Sh13.05 billion from sh18.61 billion. This led to an overall decline in total exports to Far East Asia. Total exports to Asia fell by 20.9 per cent from Sh51.7 billion in the first quarter of 2018 to Sh 40.9 billion. Total value of exports declined to Sh156.9 billion, from Sh161.7 billion over the period. Export earnings of horticultural products however went up by seven per cent to Sh36.8 billion in the first quarter of 2019 to become the leading foreign exchange earner. Clothing and apparel earned the country Sh7.65 billion, slightly more from Sh7.47 billion. Total exports to Africa were valued at Sh53.4 billion, accounting for 34.1 per cent...

President Museveni yesterday stressed the need to work with Sierra Leone in areas of specialisation, business transactions and trade over. The President made the remarks while receiving his Sierra Leone counterpart, Mr Julius Maada Bio, at State House, Entebbe. The Sierra Leone leader is on a three-day state visit at the invitation of his host. The two leaders held bilateral talks along with their respective delegations during which Mr Museveni congratulated his guest for attaining political stability in Sierra Leone and ending the Ebola outbreak. Mr Museveni also commended President Maada Bio for his great leadership skills as the current chairperson of the committee of 10 the African Union. Mr Maada Bio thanked Mr Museveni for sending Ugandan doctors to assist Sierra Leone when the Ebola epidemic in the Ebola epidemic hit the West African country between 2014 and 2016. He said the action had greatly saved Sierra Leone from more deaths. He appreciated President Museveni’s role in supporting the peace processes in South Sudan. Following the meeting, three Memoranda of Understanding were signed between both governments. These included a general cooperation framework agreement; political consultations agreement between the two countries’ initiated by the respective Foreign Affairs ministers Sam Kuteesa and his counterpart, Faridah Nabeera. The waiver of visa requirements for holders of diplomatic, official or service passports was signed by the Internal Affairs Minister, Gen Jeje Odongo, and Ms Nabeera. A joint communiqué issued at the conclusion of the talks stated that Mr Museveni and his Sierra Leone counterpart...

The Nigerian government Tuesday said it will sign the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) at the upcoming Extraordinary Summit of the African Union in the Nigerien capital city, Niamey. The extraordinary summit is expected to hold on July 7, according to information African Union’s website. Africa’s most populous abstained from signing the agreement initially, saying it was weighing the effects it will have on its economy. “Nigeria is signing the #AfCFTA Agreement after extensive domestic consultations,” the government said in a statement. African Union’s commissioner for trade and industry Albert Muchanga said Nigeria ratifying the agreement is a “good and important development.” AfCFTA came into effect in March with 52 out of 55 countries backing the policy. The Brookings institution described Nigeria’s decision to not ratify the agreement at the time as “baffling”. Two countries – Eritrea and Nigeria’s neighbour the Republic of Benin – are yet to sign the agreement. Being the continent’s biggest market and bedevilled by porous and poorly manned borders, Nigeria is wary it may become a dumping ground for all sorts of goods, especially those not made in Africa. It said it is “focused on taking advantage of ongoing negotiations to secure the necessary safeguards against smuggling, dumping and other risks/threats.” Nigerian government acquiesced to sign the agreement after a panel set up by President Muhammadu Buhari in March gave AfCFTA a positive nod. “Our reports show that, on balance, Nigeria should consider joining the AfCFTA”, the panel’s chair, Desmond Guobadia, said in a statement to the president Thursday...

The governments of Uganda and Rwanda have been sued over what the civil society described as the “arbitrary closure” of the two neighbouring countries’ common border. The suit was this past week filed at the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) by three civil society organisations – East African sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women, Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATIN-Uganda), and Centre for Food and Adequate Living Rights (CEFROHT). The Gatuna border post was on February 27 closed by Rwandan authorities in the wake of tense relations with Uganda. Rwanda said it shut the border to pave way for construction works on the One Stop Border Post (OSBP). Other border posts remained open but Ugandan goods were locked out of the Rwandan market. In other instances, tariffs on Ugandan goods were raised, making bilateral trade almost impossible. Rwanda President Paul Kagame would later blame the “bad politics” and arrests of Rwandan citizens in Uganda for the border closure. The civil society groups now say Attorney Generals of Uganda and Rwanda have been served the suit to prepare their defence. The activists say the border closure is in “contravention of the Treaty for the establishment of the EAC and Common market Protocol.” At least 400 statements from the affected citizens have since been taken from affected citizens of both countries to support the case. The civil society groups demanded that the EACJ “pronounces itself on the continued impunity and arbitrary closure,” adding, “the court should declare...

Arusha. Finally, the East African Competition Authority (Eaca) has taken off with the finalization of a study on the regional retail sector. Although its permanent seat is yet to be determined, the newest body of the East African Community (EAC) is now fully operational. Findings of the study are meant to develop policy and regulatory instruments that will address challenges faced by various players in the regional retail sector. A source at the EAC secretariat told The Citizen that in order to entrench its activities, a law establishing Eaca would be amended. The EAC Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2019 would address the gaps of the 2006 legislation that established the institution. The Foreign Affairs and EA Cooperation deputy minister Damas Ndumbaro said recently plans are afoot to align the new institution to the broader activities of the EAC. These will include conducting series of awareness workshops for the partner states officials, consumers and members of the business community. The authority is allocated some $ 727,501 for its expenditure during the 2019/2020 financial year which started yesterday. The estimates were approved on Friday by the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala). The total EAC budget tabled was $ 111m. According to Dr. Ndumbaro, major activities to be undertaken by EAC during 2019/2020 fiscal year will include recruitment of the staff. Others are amendments of the organization's regulations 2010 and development of merger and acquisition regulations. Eaca, a new of nearly a dozen institutions under the EAC, has a mandate to promote fair trade...

Implementation of common market protocol EAC and maintaining the fate of our local farmers and business people has become a major challenge to full realization of of the regional integration since the time it came into force in July 1, 2010. The common market has faced this challenge mainly because some members of partner states either do not understand the importance of regional integration or they think that by blocking free movement of people, goods and capital across the borders of partner will spur economic growth. Among the objectives of the Common Market Protocol include acceleration of growth and development among partner states through the attainment of free movement of goods, labour, strengthen coordinate and regulate the economic and trade relations among partner states in order to promote accelerated harmonious and balanced development within the community. All these could be made impossible following stringent rules that partner states are putting in place and the utterances by political leaders from partner states. A good example is the trade dispute between Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam that led to the arrest of Starehe Member of Parliament Charles Njagua. In defence of Mr. Njagua Majority Leader in the National Assembly Aden Duale also made sentiments that seemed to support what Mr Njagua had said. Mr Duale accused Tanzania of being a stumbling block to regional integration following their move to stop top Kenyan professional Silvia Mulinge from taking up a job in Tanzania. Such perceived differences or suspicions between member states should not be wished...

Agricultural producers in Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) stand to increase share in the global market, thanks to a project being fast-tracked by the regional bloc to enhance food health standards. Agricultural stakeholders have been calling for the upgrading and accreditation of laboratories for testing agricultural products for export and managing pesticides to enable exporters access global niche market segments. The Comesa secretariat is implementing a project on mainstreaming Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards (SPS) capacity building into national policy frameworks in five countries. Director of Agriculture and Industry, Thierry Kalonji said most of the regional agricultural products fail to access global market even in terms of premium prices as producers fail to observe outlined standards. Kalonji spoke during a three-day training held in Kenya last week. Health standards During the meeting, experts drawn from agriculture, livestock, and health sectors discussed a framework of identifying and prioritising health standards issues that impede export of agriculture commodities. The framework dubbed Prioritising SPS Investments for Market Access (P-IMA) was designed by the World Trade Organisation Standards and Trade Development Facility. Kalonji said that similar training has been conducted in Uganda and others are lined up for Rwanda, Malawi and Ethiopia, the five participating countries. ”The training is aimed at equipping the institutions dealing with production and export of agriculture and livestock products, with the skills to apply the P-IMA tool to identify SPS priorities that can be mainstreamed into National Planning and Investment Frameworks,” he said. He added: “In general, investments in...

The African Continental Free Trade Area comes into effect on July 7 and it will be a historic day as the continent becomes a single market. The African Union hopes the AfCTA will accelerate continental integration and trade, boost manufacturing and address possible overlaps within trade blocs. This, however, requires members to review import tariffs, striking off import duty from 90 per cent of goods for free access to goods and services across the continent. But, a recent United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) report warns that the trade gains may not be evenly distributed among AU member states if proper rules that consider trade patterns, tariff profiles, liberalisation schedules and dependence on tariff revenue are not made. Bottlenecks The AfCFTA implementation team already anticipates bottlenecks based on the existing problems facing intra-African trade in the EAC, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the Economic Community of West African States and Southern African Development Community. While presenting The Economic Development in Africa Report, 2019 titled “Rules of Origin for Enhanced Intra-African Trade” in Nairobi last week, Chris Onyango, an expert on international issues, said the way the rules of origin will be created, enforced and verified will determine distribution of economic gains from the AfCFTA and shape future regional value chains. According to the Unctad report, intra-Africa trade was only 15.2 per cent between 2015 to 2017. Growth has been constrained by differences in trade regimes, restrictive Customs procedures, administrative and technical barriers, inadequacies in trade finance, information...

The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and the East African Community (EAC) bilateral tariff liberalisation negotiations have been concluded. Launched in 10 June 2015, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) aims to establish a single market for 27 African countries with a combined population of about 700 million (57% of Africa’s population), and Gross Domestic Product above US$1.4 trillion. Information from the SACU Secretariat office states that SACU and EAC have done their part by concluding the bilateral tariff liberalization negotiations between the two regional blocs. The Secretariat says the conclusion of the SACU-EAC negotiations is a significant step towards realising the benefits of the whole TFTA. The TFTA is based on three pillars, namely, market integration, infrastructure development and industrial development. As part of the market integration, member/partner states have been engaged in bilateral tariff liberalisation negotiations. The market access negotiations between SACU – consisting of Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa –and EAC, which consists of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda -- have been successfully concluded. As a result, the SACU-EAC private sector will thus have access to new and dynamic markets for exports as well as new sources of inputs for domestic production processes, thereby enhancing intra-regional trade.  Furthermore, the SACU and EAC secretariats, in a joint statement released last week, said that there was emphasis on the development of regional value chains in a wide range of sectors to deepen integration between SACU and the...

China has asked Kenya and Uganda to work on their respective financing modalities for the joint railway in order to receive funding for the project, Ugandan Finance Minister Matia Kasaija has said. China declined to fund the project, with analysts saying the two states’ public debt levels are too high to accumulate more, hence the fear by Beijing over their default risk. But Mr Kasaija told The EastAfrican that China has always been “ready to give us the funds to start the construction of SGR in Uganda, but there have been some complications between us with our neighbour Kenya. Kenya is supposed to extend the line to Malaba, but they have not been able to do so.” Although Kenya has completed the initial SGR phase linking Mombasa to Nairobi, and has progressed with the second phase from Nairobi to Naivasha, the fate of the subsequent phases from Naivasha to Kisumu and then to Malaba at the Ugandan border hangs in the balance. Increased competitiveness The 1,500km railway project, expected to be complete in 2018, was meant to increase the region’s competitiveness by lowering transport costs and ultimately the cost of doing business. Speaking to The EastAfrican on Friday on the sidelines of the First China-Africa Trade Expo in Changsha, the capital of central China’s Hunan Province, Mr Kasaija said that a delegation from Kampala led by President Yoweri Museveni held talks with China’s Minister for Commerce, officials of Exim Bank and Kenya’s Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia to see how the project could be...