Arusha/Dar. The East Africa Legislative Assembly (Eala) has turned down the much-anticipated EAC regional Statistics Bill after the Committee on Communications, Trade and Investment (CTI) overturned recommendations made by the ministerial committee. Many of Eala members from the six partner states wanted Section 7 (2) of the draft made during the ministerial committee meeting to be reinstated. In the ministerial committee through the section in question ministers proposed that the director position for the new regional body should be filled by people who hold a master’s degree in statistics with ten years of experience. However, after going through the recommendations, CTI proposed that the head of statistic bureaus from the partner states should automatically hold the positions. It was sent back for amendment and will be debated in the next session scheduled for November. “The Bill drew stiff debate in the house as most of the members opposed the proposals made by the CTI,” Dr Abdullah Makame, from Tanzania told The Citizen over the phone. Reports indicate that Tanzanian Eala members wrote a letter to the Clerk of the regional Assembly on Monday to request for reinstatement of the earlier provision of Clause 7 (2) of the said bill. In effect, Tanzanian member, supported by those from other member states rejected the amendments. Thirteen lawmakers from Uganda, Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan supported the adjournment of the debate of the crucial legislative document. However, Paul Musamali from Uganda opposed the Motion on adjournment of the Bill as announced by...

The East African Business Council has asked member states of the East African Community to adopt the regulatory framework for Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs), as stipulated in the region’s Common Market Protocol, in order to facilitate easy movement of professionals in the region. Nicholas Nesbitt, the Council Chairman said although the six member states signed the protocol, the movement of labour especially in specialized fields has not been implementing because of the failure by member states to implement MRAs. MRA is an international pact by which two or more countries agree to recognize one another’s conformity assessments. The objective for signing an MRA is to enable professionals in one country to be recognized in all regional states, thereby easing free movement of specialized services across the region thus facilitating free movement of professionals across the EAC. Currently, professionals including veterinary doctors, accountants, architects, and engineers, among others cannot freely export their services in the region. According to Nesbitt, the challenge is that some partners have not liberalized some services sectors under the MRAs while others lack regulatory authorities to facilitate implementation of the MRAs. “Tanzania has not liberalized the architectural and veterinary services while Kenya has not liberalized the veterinary services,” said Nesbitt. To overcome such challenges, the East African Business Council wants the EAC member states to finalize the signing of all pending MRAs alongside liberalizing of professional services where MRAs have been negotiated among the member states. Furthermore, to ease the movement of professional skills in the region,...

East African Community partner states continue to introduce tariff and non-tariff barriers that are hindering intra-regional trade and putting integration at risk. Manufacturers of confectionery in Kenya, oil and fats in Uganda and a wheat and juice producer from Tanzania reported encountering tariff and non-tariff barriers that blocked them from entering regional markets. Yasin Billo, export manager of Tanzanian industrial conglomerate Bakhresa Group, said the company currently has 15 trucks stuck at the Tanzania-Kenya border because the Kenya Revenue Authority changed the rules and systems for exporting goods to the country. However, Tanzanian Commissioner for Customs and Excise Ben Usaje said Bakhresa Group believed they were being mistreated because of the continued dispute over Kenyan confectionery. Customs officials in Tanzania have blocked Kenyan confectionery products because they were allegedly manufactured using sugar that was imported at zero rate, instead of the EAC’s 100 per cent CET. Sugar dispute In 2017, Kenya faced a sugar crisis that prompted importation of sugar at a zero tariff. Under the EAC regulations, this rate should have been 100 per cent, since sugar is a sensitive product that needs protection from dumping. Mr Usaje said it is this sugar that the confectionery manufacturers are using and such products will not be allowed into the Tanzanian market unless a 25 per cent import duty is paid on them. Mr Usaje added that Kenyan confectionery will not enjoy duty free rates in the Tanzanian market until the EAC forms another committee that declares their processes legitimate. An...

Last week, while addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the Secretary General of the United Nations Centre for Trade & Development Dr Mukhisa Kituyi expressed concern at the frequent arrests of petty traders across African borders. As UNCTAD Secretary General Kituyi should know the challenges that face cross border trade. A random 23-year old Tanzanian woman trader has a pretty good idea what it feels like to have 5,000 day old chicks razed to ashes when she not so long ago borrowed money and invested in what she thought was a life changing, one-time, opportunity. She lost all her investments and was the subject of an intended prosecution for conducting illegal business against known Tanzanian Laws. Welcome to how Africa operates. It’s a jungle out here where proximity does not mean the same thing as closeness. Where Marwa Chacha who lives in Suba-Kuria district in Migori County in Kenya is not expected to share milk let alone trade it with Chacha Marwa whose residence is 500 metres away in Sirari in Mara Province. Government functionaries will read a riot-act of operational rules that are intended to protect the interests of local trade from cross border “greed” and interests. The rules are great in as far as intent is concerned. The trouble with these rules is that they are a coinage of the colonial era of cold-war divisions that were meant to achieve economic enclaves through blockades. These economic enclaves were by definition meant to be sources of...

Kampala. High transportation costs are the overriding reason Ugandan importers prefer Mombasa Port to Dar es Salaam, according to a Ugandan logistics firm. For instance, the cost of transporting one container from Dar es Salaam Port to Kampala is around $4,800 (Sh10.6 million) compared to $2,700 (Sh6 million) from Mombasa. “Tanzania Ports Authority still needs to do much more in order to win our market”, Ms Jennifer Mwijukye, CEO and managing director of Kampala-based UniFreight, said here yesterday. She told journalists currently visiting selected projects in East African Community (EAC) member countries that Tanzanian ports were also disadvantaged by the distance to Uganda. While Dar es Salaam Port is about 1,600 kilometres from Kampala, where most of the Ugandan imports are destined, Mombasa is 1,200 kilometres away . Ms Mwijukye said imports through Tanzanian ports would pick up once “major improvements” were done in clearing goods at the shortest time possible at Dar es Salaam Port. “The cost of transporting goods from Dar es Salaam remains high,” she said, noting that it would take time for Ugandan imports through Tanzania to surpass those passing through Kenya. Ms Mwijukye acknowledged recent efforts made by TPA to win over Ugandan importers, including the opening of an office in Kampala. She said, however, that more needs to be done to lower transportation costs and reduce the time it takes to clear imports. The pendulum may nevertheless swing in Dar es Salaam’s favour upon the completion of the standard gauge railway between Dar es...

The African continent contains some of the fastest growing economies in the world. Collectively, growth in Sub-Saharan Africa alone is projected to climb to an average 3.6% in 2019–20, up from 3.1% in 2018, according to the World Bank. Yet it is also home to many of the poorest countries, with the lowest GDP per capita. With its fast-growing population, rapid urbanization, and expanding middle class, the potential for further economic growth in Africa is enormous. But there remain many barriers to realizing anything near the continent’s full potential. In this supplement, we explore some of the most significant and promising forces breaking the old barriers to free trade and communication.  Prominent among these is the recently concluded African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), whose implementation by all 55 members of the African Union would create a new $3 trillion trade bloc that has the potential to transform historically low levels of intra-African trade. Larger and more integrated markets mean greater specialization and scaling up of production, boosting value-adds and helping to integrate African producers into global supply chains. Greater scale and larger markets should in turn make African hubs more attractive to international investors. But for intra-African trade to grow substantially, civil infrastructure, and particularly overland transportation links, need to improve. We examine the role of Chinese banks and companies in building new railways and other transport infrastructure and refurbishing older facilities, which has had a particularly large impact in East Africa. This could provide a model for other...

Sorena Sattari, Iran's Vice President for Science and Technology, has traveled to the East African region to explore business opportunities there and boost bilateral trade ties. Heading a delegating comprised of heads of 45 knowledge-based firms, Sattari will sit down with senior officials and investors from Kenya and Uganda, IRNA news agency reported on October 2. Boosting exports and strengthening business and trades ties in various fields, including health, medicine, chemistry, electronics, mines and engineering have been set as the main objectives of the visit. In each of the two African countries, the Iranian delegation will attend meetings where ways of boosting commerce with their counterparts will be surveyed. The unique geography and apparent suitability for farming made East Africa a target for European exploration, exploitation and colonization in the 19th century. Today, tourism is an important part of the economies of Kenya, Tanzania, Seychelles and Uganda. Source Trend News Agency

Nairobi. High cost of additional equipment for tracking and tracing goods has hampered smooth implementation of the Single Customs Territory (SCT), according to the business fraternity. The system was rolled out by the East African Community (EAC) last year to enable faster clearance of goods and reduce the cost of doing business in the region. Under SCT, vehicles carrying imported goods from the point of entry to the destination within the region have to be tracked using electronic devices to ensure security and tax compliance. SCT is based on destination model and under it, goods are cleared at the first point of entry into the community and taxes are assessed and paid in the destination country. Business leaders say the system has eased cross border movement of goods in the region and that by December last year, all goods were rolled onto the SCT. However, the business leaders in Tanzania are concerned that drivers carrying goods beyond the country’s borders have to buy other tracking devices. “This is due to the fact that the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) covers for transit goods only within Tanzania,” said Frank Dafa, a trade policy specialist with the Confederation of Tanzania Industries (CTI). He said the drivers taking goods to Kenya, for instance, have to buy new tracking devices from the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), which are said to cost up to $1,000 (about Sh2.3 million). He made the remarks in Dar es Salaam last week when briefing journalists from the six East African...

In March this year, there was a jubilant mood in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, when African leaders gathered to sign an accord herald as a critical step in the actualisation of free trade from Cape Town to Cairo, signalling a new era in intra-African trade. The Continental Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) is a multilateral agreement whose idea was conceived in 2012 and has finally been endorsed across Africa by 44 countries. The vision of the CFTA is to build an integrated market in Africa connecting more than a billion people and harnessing the enormous potential of the continent. Under a free trade agreement, all the signatory countries will agree to reduce trade tariffs and import quotas amongst each other. Principally, the CFTA as it is currently is the initial stage of closer economic co-operation across the more than fifty countries that make up the African Union. Consequently, this should ease Africa’s transition into a fully-fledged union. The CFTA, it is hoped, will mimic the successes of the now faltering European Union whose underlying ethos was the benefit accruing from free movement of people, a customs union, a common market and even a single currency. Effectively, the CFTA is expected to unlock Africa’s potential by shifting focus from being a harvesting ground for resources including human capital and raw materials that are subsequently exported to the more flourishing economies of the West and East for beneficiation. Additionally, there is a spirit of optimism emanating from the benefits that are expected to...

In March this year, more than 40 African leaders signed a free trade pact that aims to make it easier for countries across the continent to produce, sell and do business across borders. Intra-African trade is key to sustainable development and long-term economic security – there’s little debate about that. Yet, the latest figures suggest the recent efforts by African leaders to remove trade barriers isn’t having enough of an impact with internal trade across the continent remaining low. While the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) signed in March proves African leaders acknowledge the importance of internal trade, they now need to prove their willingness to remove the existing barriers standing in the way of it – something that will take more than signatures and handshakes. Existing barriers to intra-African trade Despite the signing of trade agreements between a majority of African nations, the free movement of goods and business is still being held back by non-tariffs barriers, red tape, insufficient infrastructure and political conflicts. This has been evident in the East African Community (EAC), which has its own regional trade agreements to boost local business. However, poor relations between neighbouring countries has been an ongoing problem for regional trade, as outlined by TradeMark Africa. Reports of Rwandans with dual Ugandan citizenship being stopped at the border by immigration officials aren’t uncommon. Friction between Rwanda President Paul Kagame and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni appear to be hindering the progress of trade between the neighbouring countries. Cases like this are still common. East African traders also complain that new...