Africa’s sugar-producing countries will lose a significant portion of their export market in 2017 when the European Union Common Organisation of the Markets ends production quotas for its 19 members. Currently, EU member states are limited to supply a maximum of 13.5 million tonnes of sugar, leaving the African, Caribbean and Pacific states (ACP) and least developed countries (LDCs) to supply up to 3.5 million tonnes through their quota-free, duty-free access to the EU market. The EU imports approximately 60 per cent of its demand for cane sugar from the ACP countries. As the world’s largest sugar market, the EU supports African sugar producing and exporting countries such as Egypt, Mauritius, Zambia, Sudan, South Africa, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Swaziland. These countries have duty free, quota free access to the EU for agricultural products, under the “Everything but Arms” regulation and the Economic Partnership Agreements, which end in 2017. The removal of quotas means that market segmentation (between the markets for quota sugar and non-quota sugar and other products derived from sugar beet) will end, and a single set of prices for sugar beet and processed sugar will apply. Experts said that with the pressure to speed up the Free Trade Area across the continent, competition for the regional sugar market will be stiffer as surplus sugar enters the African market. “In Kenya, for instance, we have to come up with a policy of subsidising the farmers,” said Alfred Busolo, managing director of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Food...

The East African Community partner states have taken the final step in the implementation of the World Trade Organisation Trade Facilitation Agreement, a move expected to widen the market for the region’s goods and services in developed countries. The five member states beat the March 31 deadline for their commitment and full participation as a bloc in the WTO trade agreement as required by the WTO Protocol. Once the protocol is implemented, it is expected to cut the cost of doing business between the EAC and other economies by almost 14.5 per cent, adding to trade reforms already underway in the region to bring down trade barriers. Peter Kiguta, EAC Director-General for Customs and Trade, said that the final notification documents have been deposited with WTO after the East African states agreed on the notification criteria late last month. The earlier deadline for the notification had been set for July 2014, but EAC partners negotiated an extension up to March 31, 2015. Negotiating as a bloc According to Mr Kiguta, partners petitioned for an extension so that they could trade with the other economies as a bloc. “Although under the WTO requirements, countries negotiate as individual partners, EAC countries are bound by the Customs Union to negotiate trade agreements as a bloc. And under Article 24 of the WTO treaty, partners have the leeway to do so but only after consultation and approval by the WTO Trade Committee,” he said, adding that the negotiations by the member states as a...

East Africa’s competitiveness as an investment destination is at risk from the rising incidence of unfair trade practices among firms operating across the region. The delayed enactment of the East African Community Competition Act (2006) has created loopholes for trade associations and firms operating across the region to engage in exclusive agreements, and from cartels, forcing consumers to pay relatively higher prices for goods and services. The operationalisation of the Act, however, requires EAC member countries to have in place national competition laws and institutions. Kenya and Tanzania already have fully functioning national competition laws while Burundi has enacted its own Competition Act and is in the process of creating the necessary institutions. Although Rwanda already has various laws in place to regulate unfair trade practices, a specialised authority to enforce the competition and consumer protection laws has not been established. Uganda is also in the process of enacting competition laws. “There is a serious problem of cartels as some of these companies operate across the region. We have advised our government to ensure that the East Africa Community Competition law comes into force from July 1,” said Wang’ombe Kariuki, director-general of the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK). The EAC Council of Ministers is working on the EAC Competition (Amendment) Bill 2015, which seeks to amend the Competition Act to establish a mechanism to eliminate counterfeiting and piracy in the region. The Bill is further expected to create a conducive investment climate, free of unfair competition practices and also promote...

While the last 15 years have seen relatively high levels of growth driven by a commodity super-cycle and strong internal demand from a growing middle class, Africa is still dependent on commodities for most of its export earnings. There is now broad consensus that without diversified economies, Africa will remain prone to exogenous shocks and trapped in the paradox of high growth rates, coexisting with high levels of unemployment and extreme poverty. It is for this reason that the last four issues of the Economic Report for Africa have investigated the fundamental policy questions and challenges facing the transformation process and endeavoured to shed light on, and bring coherence to, policy priorities at national, regional and continental levels. The key factors constraining trade and industrialisation in Africa are related to Africa's narrow production and export base, which is dominated by low-value products such as raw materials and primary commodities. This is compounded by very high trade costs, tariffs and non-tariff barriers to intra-African trade and Africa's access to international markets. We have no alternative but to increase our share of global exports. While in the 1970s, Africa accounted for 4,99% of world trade and East Asia 2,25%, by 2010, we had regressed to 3,33%, while East Asia had soared to 17,8%. Limited by poor infrastructure and inefficient logistics, lack of adequate skills and quality inputs, insufficient provision of credit and financial services, ours has become a story of lost opportunity. The time has come for us to awake. Africa's current...

President Paul Kagame says Africa is missing an opportunity to utilize intra-African trade and raise enough investment to replace foreign aid. “We are missing an opportunity in our own countries; intra-African investments are key and it is not happening the way it should,” he said. The Rwandan leader was at a panel discussing Africa’s future during the Milken Institute Global conference in Los Angeles, California on April 28. The panel included; Tony Blair, Former UK Prime Minister, Scott Minerd, Chairman of Investments and Global Chief Investment Officer for Guggenheim Partners and Patrice Motsepe, Founder and Executive Chairman, African Rainbow Minerals. Minerd said: “Africa doesn’t carry the burden of the old infrastructure of the developed world, so it can leapfrog with innovative solutions.” Kagame noted that Africa has paid a big price for failure to engage in intra-African trade and that investments will be secure if African countries work together on security. “This is happening in East Africa,” he said. Africa, with 1.2 billion people, is a mineral rich continent, but is engulfed in conflicts and unfriendly policies that have impeded boosting economies. It has the Economic Community of West African States, the Common Market for East and Southern Africa and the East African Community, but have not opened doors for trade between each other. Apart from EAC where its citizens freely travel without a passport and need no work permits, labour movement in Africa remains a daunting task. The African Development Bank says intra-African trade was less than 5% and...

Burundi, the smallest and poorest of the five East African countries, is on the chasm of chaos. Barely forty eight hours after President Pierre Nkurunziza launched his 're-election' campaign, two demonstrators were executed and dozens injured by police. Their only crime was exercising their freedom of expression and their right to assemble and associate freely. If media reports are anything to go by, these killings are just the beginning of a fatal campaign period. Nkurunziza’s unapologetic and seemingly violent bid for a third term is very disturbing. First, it smacks of the Big Man Syndrome, which 'legitimises' total disregard for the supremacy of the constitution. Second, Burundians who have witnessed genocide twice before, in 1972 and 1993, are so scared that thousands have already crossed over into neighbouring Rwanda where they are living in squalor. Third, those seeking refuge in Rwanda are majority Tutsis, an unfortunate reminder of the circumstances that led to the worst genocide in human history. Dozens of Burundians and Rwandese in the US argue that it is just a matter of time before tension start rising between the two neighbours over the ethnic divide and the materially opposing ruling elite on either side of the border. Nkurunziza is an ethnic Hutu while his Rwandese counterpart Paul Kagame is a Tutsi. Both leaders have rebel backgrounds but their leadership styles are totally different. Burundians fear that Kagame may be compelled to intervene on behalf of his fellow Tutsis and in the process plunge the two countries into...

The East African Tourist Visa has a greater impact on promoting regional markets compared to international ones, according to the joint marketing tourism committee under the Northern Corridor Integration projects. The three East African Community (EAC) partner states launched a single tourist visa in February, last year, which allows tourists roaming the three partner states to travel freely without seeking any other travel document or paying more. The visa was meant to open the region to travellers from around the world and help boost tourism in the region marketed as one destination. However, according to officials in the marketing committee, the visa initiative, coupled with a tripartite arrangement between Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda to have citizens of the three countries use identity cards as travel documents, has led to a sharp rise in the rate of regional clients as opposed to those from international markets. Reacting to the development, Yamina Karitanyi, the head of tourism and conservation at Rwanda Development Board, said regional markets were more predictable and sustainable compared to international markets given the trend of travel advisories that have targeted the countries in the region. Kenya has been subject to travel advisories by a number of countries such as Britain and Australia following terrorist attacks. The latest attack by militants al Shabaab on an institution of higher learning in the north-eastern part of the country left 148 people dead and scores injured. “Domestic and regional tourism has gone up in the region, which has also had a positive...

Arusha — The 31st Meeting of the East African Community Council of Ministers is underway at the EAC Headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. The Council of Ministers meeting is being held through the Sessions of the Senior officials from Monday 27 to Tuesday 28 April 2015, the Session of the Co-ordination Committee i.e. Permanent/Principal Secretaries on Wednesday 29 April, and the Ministerial Session is on Thursday 30 April 2015. The Council of Ministers meeting is considering several issues, including the operationalization of the East African Parliamentary Institute (EAPI), the initiation of policy-oriented Bills by the Council for purposes of enactment of such legislation to support institutional development and the effective implementation of integration programmes and activities, and progress report on the negotiations for the Republic of the South Sudan to join the East African Community. The Council will also consider items in the infrastructure, productive and Social Sectors, human resource matters and those pertaining to Organs and Institutions of the Community. Source: All Africa

The council of Ministers of the East African Community (EAC) will this week meet in Arusha, Tanzania, with the status of negotiations regarding South Sudan's application to join the community expected to be among the top issues on the agenda. The council meetings are attended by the ministers responsible for EAC affairs of each partner state. This week's meeting, which opened yesterday and runs until Thursday, is the 31st ordinary meeting of the council. It normally takes place in three sessions beginning with that of senior officials of the EAC followed by that of EAC permanent secretaries before climaxing with the ministers' meetings that mainly considers key issues forwarded by their technical officials. Innocent Safari, the permanent secretary at Rwanda's Ministry of East African Affairs, told The New Times, yesterday, that the status of negotiations regarding South Sudan's application to join the EAC as a sixth member will be one of the key issues for the council to consider. The Republic of South Sudan, which is currently embroiled in a contest for political power between President Salva Kiir's government and rebels loyal to his former deputy Riek Machar, applied to join the EAC on June 10, 2011. The EAC Council of Ministers then established a high level negotiation team to negotiate the country's entry into the Community, a process that was initiated by the South Sudanese government delegation appointed by President Kiir on March 13, last year. In November, last year, the South Sudanese delegation met the Secretary General of...

The Asia-Africa Summit has been taking place in Jakarta over the past few days, with government officials from over 100 countries taking part. High-level dignitaries attending the event have included Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and Indian Minister Sushma Swaraj, as well as heavy hitters from the smaller nations of both regions. Themed “The Realization of the Asia-Africa Partnership for Progress”, calls were made to push for reform of the global economic architecture, this included implied criticism of the World Bank, IMF and Asian Development Bank, with suggestions that they had done little to deal with issues both in Asia and certainly in Africa. Noting that China’s weight in the IMF was the same as a medium-sized European country, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee stated that such institutions no longer reflected the true world order and welcomed China’s recent plans for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Source: Asean Briefing