Regional legislators will from next week tour the EAC States to collect stakeholders’ views and submissions on the envisaged East African Community Electronic Transactions Bill 2014. East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) said the visit which involves the Committee on Communication, Trade and Investment starts today, ending on Thursday. The Committee chaired by Uganda’s Mukasa Mbidde, has split into two groups to be more effective. Members will undertake simultaneous tour of the capitals. “The first group shall visit Dar es Salaam, Nairobi and Kampala while the second group will be in Bujumbura, Kigali and Kampala,” Eala said in a press statement. Stakeholders to be visited include ministries responsible for ICT, finance, trade, commerce and tourism. Others are the offices of the Attorney General and the Law Reform Commissions as well as the Law Societies and enforcement agencies. The MPs are also expected to meet representatives of the private sector including the East African Business Council and the respective private sector federations in the partner States. Both groups then converge in Kampala, Uganda on March 4, 2015, to consider the views and synthesise the input into a report. The Bill was introduced as a private member’s Bill at the recent sitting in Arusha by Dr James Ndahiro. “The Bill aims at making provision for the use, security, facilitation and regulation of electronic communications and transactions to encourage the use or e-government service and to provide for related matters,” noted the regional parliament. In May last year, the East African Payments System was...

Germany's Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier is seeking to intensify ties between Germany and Africa. Berlin is particularly interested in countries that foster regional stability. Steinmeier's four-day trip took him to three countries - the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Kenya - and its purpose is to forge new partnerships for Germany. There were occasional glitches. At the Nairobi museum, the minister was shown the start of a film with sound, but no pictures. But such mishaps did not stop the high-level cultural and scientific delegation from Germany engaging in a lively debate with Kenya's cultural elite about new forms of cooperation with Africa. Such cooperation is expected to acquire tangible shape at a newly created Humboldt Forum in Berlin starting in 2019. Cultivating a new relationship with Africa was the main goal of the foreign minister's four-day tour. In spite of the ongoing crises in Ukraine, the Middle East and Greece, Steinmeier went ahead with his Africa tour, the fourth in twelve months, to promote Germany's new Africa policy. "We have to look at Africa in a new way," Steinmeier said. Germany still tends to view Africa as the continent of crises and conflicts. "But this is no longer true for all of Africa, because there are also anchors of stability in which we are particularly interested," the German minister said. 'Where is Germany?' Steinmeier said one anchor of stability in the region was Rwanda, despite deficits in democratic governance and its tense relationship with its neighbor, the...

TANZANIA’S share of trade in the East African Community is expected to be further buoyed by rising exports from its growing manufacturing sector. Exports to East African Community partner states hit record high in 2013 with total trade turnover glossing over 1.5 billion US dollars, according to the East African Community Facts and Figures for 2014. The East African Community second largest economy had a positive balance of trade in the EAC region with a surplus of 723 million US dollars in 2013 up from a deficit amounting to 158.8 million US dollars in 2012. Compared with 2012, Tanzania’s intra-EAC trade grew by 26 per cent in 2013, with exports rising by an impressive 115 per cent, although imports declined by 41 per cent, the figures showed. Kenya remained Tanzania’s main EAC trade partner, with trade flows totalling 1.2 billion US dollars. Information from the Ministry of East African Cooperation shows the main exports to the East African Community region include machines, fertilizers, cement, electrical equipments, ships and boats equipments, cereals, oil products and their distillations, paper and textiles. However, Tanzania’s exports to the EAC constitute a minor share out of the country’s total exports in 2013 which reached about 8.5 billion US dollars, according to Bank of Tanzania reports. Tanzania main exports partners are India, Japan, China, United Arab Emirates, Netherlands and Germany. Tanzania major exports are agricultural commodities with tobacco, coffee, cotton, cashew nuts, tea and cloves being the most important. Other exports include gold and manufactured goods....

Tour guides across the East African region will soon get the same training and manuals to ease their work, APA learns here Tuesday. Speaking in an interview in Kampala, the chairperson of Uganda Safari Guides Association, Herbert Byaruhanga, said that with the formation of the Federation of East Africa Tour Guides Association, the task of harmonizing the standards will be easy. He said the harmonization will ensure that the guides that are trained in Uganda have the same syllabus like their counterparts in other East African Countries. This means that the guides can operate in all the countries, in areas like bird watching and nature guiding. However, he said the guides may need to undergo specific training in each country when it comes to cultural guiding. Currently, the guides do not have a standard uniform training. While Kenya already has a standard and well developed module, Uganda and other countries are still developing their own. He said as the team players, they are already working to ensure that all the East African tour guides have a standard training that makes their work easier. Source: Star Africa

A DELEGATION of Indian business people from the state of Gujarat is in the country seeking trade and investment opportunities. The delegation of over 20 chief executive officers, managing directors, proprietors of companies and Federation of Gujarat Industries (FGI) is in the country mainly to boost bilateral trade between East African Community (EAC) and their country. Among the representatives was Amit Patel, President of FGI, who spoke on the need for EAC countries, including Tanzania, to provide incentives for research and development so that Delhi's Silicon Valley eggheads should come and invest in the bloc. Looking at India's industrial prowess and especially its information communication and technology, transport and pharmaceutical sectors are already leading exporters of their merchandise to Tanzania and the EAC bloc. Providing incentives to such big investments, which are an important factor in developing a modern middle income economy, is highly commendable and as bilateral trade between our two countries grows, knowledge should very much be part of it. As Indian High Commissioner to Tanzania Debnath Shaw said in Dar es Salaam yesterday, the two countries trade volume is set to peak 5bn US dollars within the next five years. Mr Shaw said in the past 48 months, bilateral trade between Dar es Salaam and New Delhi has more than doubled thanks to cordial relations and industrious private sectors of the two countries. Bilateral trade growth which has been in favour of Dar es Salaam for the past 48 months with growth of 72 per cent and...

Although Rwandan exports to fellow East African Community member states increased by 7 per cent to $131.56m last year, from $122.94 million in 2013, the country spent $546.80 million on imports from the region during the same period. The statistics are contained in the Monetary Policy and Financial Stability Statement presented early last week by the central bank Governor, John Rwangombwa. It left experts concerned and called for efforts to double performance. The UN Resident Coordinator Lamin M. Manneh was one of those who expressed concern, noting that something needed to be done to balance the country's trade relations with EAC partners. The trade minister Francois Kanimba, said a number of initiatives were ongoing to boost exports. Currently, Rwanda's main exports are tea, raw hides and skins, coffee, bars and rods of iron or non-alloy steel, leguminous vegetables and beer. Kanimba observed that with regional efforts to remove trade barriers beginning to pay off, it will benefit various initiatives aimed at diversifying export commodities to ensure that Rwanda has a wide array of items to sell to its neigbours. Since July 2007 when Rwanda joined the EAC, it has built a reputation as one of the most committed when it comes to implementing decisions aimed at making the integration aspiration a reality. However, some believe it's taking too long for the country to derive dividends from its commitment to the integration efforts, seven years after diving into the project. But such a concern raises questions of who is not performing...

The East African Community’s council of Ministers has been directed to expedite implementation of the framework for harmonised EAC roaming charges, including the removal of surcharges for international telecommunications traffic originating and terminating within EAC by July 15, this year. EAC Heads of State made the directives in Kenya’s capital Nairobi during the just-conclude 16th ordinary summit. In their communiqué, EAC leaders directed the council of ministers to study the modalities for promotion of motor vehicle assembly in the region and to reduce the importation of used motor vehicles from outside the community and report to the 17th summit. The summit also directed the council of ministers to study the modalities for the promotion of the textile and leather industries in the region and stopping the importation of used clothes, shoes and other leather products from outside the region and report to the 17th summit. Themed: “Deepening and accelerating integration: towards political federation” the summit noted the revised road map for the negotiations on the admission of the republic of South Sudan into the EAC and directed the council to ensure that negotiations are conducted in accordance with the revised roadmap. The summit further noted that the verification exercise for the admission of the Republic of Somalia into the East African Community was not undertaken, as preparations with the government of the republic of Somalia have not yet been finalized. The summit directed the council to undertake the verification exercise and report to the next summit. The summit adopted the...

The slide in Kenya's exports to the East African Community is likely to continue in the near-to-medium term as neighbouring countries industrialise faster, according to the Kenya Association of Manufacturers. Chief executive Betty Maina told the Star on Friday that some of the products that Kenya used to export to Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania are now being produced locally or being sourced from elsewhere at cheaper prices. She cited China and India as among countries that have eaten into Kenya's share of the five-nation EAC market. Hardest hit products include those that are paper-based or sugar-based [such as confectioneries], Maina said. An analysis of official data has shown that Kenya's sales to the neighbouring countries have been dwindling over the last four years, ironical to the noises around EAC integration that have been growing louder and louder over the same period. The value of sales to Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda in 11 months to November last year dropped to Sh85.95 billion, a 21.1 per cent decline from Sh108.93 billion over the same period in 2011. "These countries are industrialising and as they do so, they replace imports, majority of which were coming from Kenya," Maina said. "The other thing is that we have also been replaced in those markets by Indian and Chinese goods." She said there was a growing trend in imports from the two countries into the region including Kenya "partly because of our own rigidities in the Kenyan market, as well as blockages in accessing the East...

THE East African Community (EAC), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) will be merged to form a single continental Free Trading Area in 2017. The resolve was among the issues discussed during the recently held, EAC Heads of State Summit Meeting in Nairobi, where the Secretary General for the EAC, Dr Richard Sezibera, extended his appreciation to the five regional presidents in supporting the proposed giant, future trading bloc. “I would like to thank Your Excellencies for insisting that East Africa negotiate as a bloc, even during the most difficult moments. The spirit you nurtured is evident in the ongoing negotiations for a continental Free Trade Area between EAC, COMESA, SADC and ECOWAS,” stated Dr Sezibera. “We are in good position to benefit from an eventual Free Trade Area that will result in the establishment of an integrated market of 26 countries, with a combined population of almost 600 million people,” stated the Secretary General for the East African Community, which at the moment comprises of Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania. Taking over the EAC Summit Chair, President Jakaya Kikwete had also maintained that; “To us in Tanzania, as it is the case with all East African Community partner states, regional integration is a matter of both principle and policy. We are staunch supporters of the integration process and formidable believers in African Unity,” he said. The proposed vast Free Trading Area...

“While implementation of the EAC Common Market Protocol which would pave way for a monetary union and make history on the African continent, the Common Market Protocol is still lagging,” stated the Tanzanian Head of State. President Kikwete made the statement in his acceptance speech after taking over the chairmanship of the East African Heads of State Summit in Nairobi late Friday evening. He cited the East African Common Market scorecard of 2014 which indicated a slow trend and progress by member states in the implementation of some of aspects of the Common Market Protocol. “Fortunately, however, key recommendations have been proposed on increasing the pace of its implementation. All of us must ensure full implementation of these recommendations." “But with regard to free movements of services, for example, we are told, 63 measures out of 500 key sectoral laws and regulations of partner states were identified to be inconsistent with the Common Market Protocol." Strangely, though, professional services accounted for 73 per cent of these,” he said. According to Mr Kikwete, the scorecard appreciated that a lot has been done in the movement of goods but non-tariff barriers, particularly agreements on the application of sanitary and phytosanitary measures remain notorious. “Only two out of the 20 capital operations are free of restrictions in all partner states. These are those related to external borrowing by residents and repatriation of proceeds from sale of asset,” he added. President Kikwete urged the community as a whole to remain focused on the implementation...