The COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Free Trade Area (FTA) would be launched during the Tripartite Summit of Heads of State and Government in mid-December 2014, in Egypt, taking into account the fact that the majority of the Tripartite Member/Partner States have made ambitious tariff offers and were agreed on Rules of Origin to be applied in the interim whilst further work continues on product specific Rules of Origin. This is the outcome of the Tripartite Sectoral Committee of Ministers meeting on trade held in Bujumbura, Burundi on 24 and 25 October 2014. Mauritius was represented at this meeting by the Director, International Trade Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, Mr Assad Bhuglah. The meeting also agreed on the need for the expeditious formulation and implementation of a regional industrial programme in order to enable the Tripartite FTA realise inclusive and equitable growth. The Tripartite FTA encompassing 26 Member/Partner States from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), with a combined population of 625 million people and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of USD 1.2 trillion, will account for half of the membership of the African Union and 58% of the continent's GDP. The Tripartite FTA, popularly known as the Grand Free Trade Area, will be the largest economic bloc on the continent and the launching pad for the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area in 2017. The Tripartite FTA will offer significant opportunities for...

GLOBAL - Negotiators from the EU and the East African Community (EAC) have finalised a new comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between both regions. The agreement will provide legal certainty for businesses and open a long-term perspective for free and unlimited access to the EU market for products from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. "The East African Community region stands out for its dynamism, and ambition to develop as an integrated region. The comprehensive partnership agreement we have just reached is the best way in which we can support EAC's aspirations", said EU Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht. "We have concluded two other development-oriented partnerships with African regions this year. It's a source of my personal satisfaction also to see East Africa benefiting from the opportunities that Europe wants to offer. I hope that these EPAs will be signed and implemented soon." In 2013, total Trade between the EU and the East African Community amounted to €5.8 billion. The EU imports from the EAC are worth €2.2 billion and consist mostly of coffee, cut flowers, tea, tobacco, fish and vegetables. Exports from the EU into the EAC, mainly machinery and mechanical appliances, equipment and parts, vehicles and pharmaceutical products, amount to €3.5 billion. Source:: The Fish Site

NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 27 – Trade Mark East Africa (TMA) and the Kenya Tourism Federation (KTF) have signed a Sh9 million grant that seeks to create awareness on the regional Single Tourist Visa and the use of Identity Cards in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. The Federation’s CEO Agatha Juma says the initiative will focus on encouraging the players in the tourism sector like tour operators and travel agencies to take advantage of the two developments and help grow the region’s tourism sector. “You realise that even though it is a good thing that has been done, it has not been well implemented because people are not aware of the opportunities. That is why we came back to Trade Mark East Africa and requested them to work with us and create this awareness,” Juma said. She laments that close to one year since the two documents were launched, most players in the sector and even citizens in the region are still unaware of the development. The federation plans to work with the industry and have them use the single visa as a promotional tool to EAC as a tourist destination and not Kenya alone. They will also be encouraged to market regional travel using IDs. “With this, we could for example go into Uganda and get people to travel to Kenya on holiday without needing passports. Most people say the process of going to get a passport is long. But people need to know and be convinced that with your ID...

The white smoke came on October 14 when Foreign Affairs PS announced on Twitter that ‘‘we have a deal.’’ The five East African Community (EAC) states had waited with bated breath for more than five months as the technocrats negotiated the all important trade deal with Europe. What a relief that was! Europe is still very important to African economies. It is worth noting that 24 per cent of our exports go to Europe while 95 per cent of our horticultural flowers also end up somewhere in the continent. This is made possible by trade arrangements between the two nation-groups established historically from as early as early as 1975 to date. Economically speaking, Europe is a significant trading partner. It is the word ‘partner’ that they don’t realise is significant in the economic agreement. The delay in signing the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) was occasioned by EU’s rejection of three items fronted mainly by Kenya — export taxes, subsidies and the relationship between the Cotonou Agreement and the EPA. The Kenyan government wants export taxes imposed on goods where they feel the country have capacity for value addition to discourage all the raw materials from going abroad. Europe felt there was no need for such as they needed the raw materials. EAC further wanted an expanded band of subsidies, something the EU did not approve of. Further, there was tête-à-tête around the longevity of the Cotonou agreement. In the end, however, the wishes of EAC were met after the larger...

The vision by East African heads of state to ensure one trading bloc for the region is certainly welcome. Like the European Union, East Africa needs to come together to form a more formidable bargaining bloc on trade issues. It would also improve the region’s economies. One bloc or territory will increase markets both regionally and internationally for export and import, which would lead to better living standards for citizens. Whereas the mooting and reviving of the East African Community (EAC) began in earnest in mid-2005, the clamour to cover more ground has been most vigorous the last one year. Calling rates and travel documents have been harmonised, and we are on the road to creating a single visa for tourists. In the customs department, East African countries are racing to achieve a single customs territory (SCT) and a customs union. This is where my concerns lie. Imminent danger The procedure to achieve the vision of a single customs territory as it is now may negatively affect our country’s economy; our security and goods control are in imminent danger. Giving other member countries the express authority to enter goods through their systems, with their customs agents generating the documentation, is not only risky for the country, but also gives undue advantage to agents in the importing countries to take all business at will. The immediate consequence of the roll out of this system is that more than 60 per cent of the business initially done by Kenyan agents has been...

About two weeks ago, Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya opened a two-day East African Business Summit in Kigali, where they unequivocally called on all EAC member states to open up their borders to allow free movement of labour, goods and capital. The leaders were quoted in the media referring to the continued fear of possible loss of jobs and opportunities by some nationals as “primitive and unfounded”. President Kenyatta is also cited as urging that “Our people must be East African, we need to open up borders for our citizens to move freely.” President Kagame is quoted as saying: “To increase trade, it is not only as a result of exporting raw materials but on [the] basis of value addition. For the rest of the world we sell raw and unprocessed materials. This is primitive, in the same way people are looking at not allowing free movement of labour.…” As someone who has already started benefiting from open borders, especially between Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, I cannot agree with the two presidents more. To start with, unlike in the past, it’s possible for nationals of Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya to travel on an identity card withing the three countries. This is profoundly beneficial to the less fortunate citizens who either don’t have a passport or cannot afford one as they can easily travel to any of the three countries without difficulty. With regard to free movement of labour, it’s possible for some to fear loss...

A committee of ministers from three trade blocs covering East and Southern Africa has agreed on a common free trade area, which will be officially announced in mid-December. The tripartite FTA will bring together the East African Community, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa and the Southern African Development Community, forming the largest trade bloc in the continent. In a statement yesterday, the Lusaka-based Comesa Secretariat said the ministers arrived at the decision on Saturday and heads of states from the member countries will endorse the move at a summit in Egypt. “The decision to launch the tripartite FTA took into account the fact that the majority of the member states have made ambitious tariff offers and were agreed on Rules of Origin to be applied in the interim whilst further work continues on product specific rules of origin,” said Sindiso Ngwenya, the Comesa Secretariat secretary-general, who also chairs the tripartite task force. The tripartite FTA – to be known as the Grand Free trade Area – will bring together 26 countries with a combined population of 625 million people and an estimated Gross Domestic Product of $1.2 trillion (Sh107.21 trillion). The trade area also brings together more than half of the 54 African countries. A continental free trade area is eyed in 2017. “The Tripartite FTA offers significant opportunities for business and investment ... and will act as a magnet for attracting foreign direct investment,” Ngwenya said. He said businesses will benefit from improved and harmonised trade regimes,...

The East African Community law on competition will come into force in December promising a boost to cross-border trade. The EAC Competition Act 2006 seeks, among other things, to promote fair trade and ensure consumer welfare and to establish the EAC Competition Authority. It grants consumers the legal right to take on unscrupulous traders who sell them substandard products and those who offer poor quality services. The EAC Council of Ministers recently decided that the law should become operational in December bringing to an end an eight-year delay occasioned by intermittent haggling and backpedalling by partner states. Trade specialists say that while some EAC partner states had enacted national competition Acts, these laws are deemed inadequate to deal with cross-border and multi-jurisdictional competition cases. They add that co-operation at the bilateral level may be enough to redress some non competitive and restrictive business practices, but a regional framework provides a more consistent and sustainable way of addressing these regional issues. The East African Business Council executive director, Mr Andrew Luzze said that as the cross border trade grows, a regional competition law becomes crucial to check unfair trade practices. Available statistics show that the EAC’s total intra-regional trade soared from $2 billion in 2005 to $5.8 billion in 2012, while the total intra-regional exports grew from $500 million to $3.2 billion in the period under review. “Without regional competition law, monopolies or firms with a lion’s market share can easily abuse their market dominance by engaging in such activities as...

Construction of the railway line from Tanzania to Burundi and Rwanda could start next year after the three countries hired a transaction advisor for the project. Canadian Pacific Consulting services (CPCS), railways transportation services consultancy firm is to source funding and investors in the planned railway line connecting the three countries. The hiring by the governments of Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania, which are jointly funding the project, paves the way for CPCS to market the project to investors and ultimately attract financiers. A functional and reliable railway line along the Central corridor is seen as crucial in bringing down transport costs and also as key oto protecting roads, which are being damaged by heavy trucks. Information from the Dar es Salaam-Isaka-Kigali / Keza-Gitega-Musongati Railway project co-ordination office in Kigali indicates that the planned 1,672 kilometre standard gauge railway project is to cost the three countries $5 billion. And the model of investment is a private public partnership. It is also emerging that Chinese, Indian, African and German investors have expressed interest in the project. But what is holding back negotiations is that the three countries have no expertise in the private-public partnership mode of investment for railway project. “A note of no objection has been sent to African Development Bank and should the bank okay it, CPCS will start marketing the project to prospective investors,” said a source in the Rwanda Transport Development Agency. AfDB is a key financing agency of this project after studies that have informed the three...

A key parliamentary committee has endorsed the protocol laying the foundation for a monetary union that will see the five East African countries converge their currencies and increase commerce. The Committee on Regional Integration last week permitted the protocol, which was signed last year by the leaders of the five countries, and is asking Parliament to endorse the monetary union—which is expected to be in place within nine years. “It is convinced that the protocol for the establishment of the EAC Monetary Union will be beneficial to individual member States of the East African Community and therefore recommends that the House ratifies the protocol,” said the committee in an advice to MPs. The protocol allows Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi to gradually converge their currencies and increase commerce. Established 13 years ago, the EAC with nearly 140 million people has already created a common market and a single customs union. The Cabinet approved the protocol and sought the nod of Parliament on July 22. “The existence of multiple currencies in the EAC region discourages trade and investment among partner States due to foreign exchange transactions costs,” read the Cabinet’s notice to Parliament. In the run-up to achieving a common currency, the East African Community (EAC) nations aim to harmonize monetary and fiscal policies and establish a common central bank. Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda already present their budgets simultaneously every June. “This implies that Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) shall not be responsible for formulating monetary policy, promoting price...