China's massive export engine sputtered for the second year in a row in 2016, with shipments falling in the face of persistently weak global demand and officials voicing fears of a trade war with the United States that is clouding the outlook for 2017. In one week, China's leaders will see if President-elect Donald Trump makes good on a campaign pledge to brand Beijing a currency manipulator on his first day in office, and starts to follow up on a threat to slap high tariffs on Chinese goods. Even if the Trump administration takes no concrete action immediately, analysts say the specter of deteriorating U.S.-China trade and political ties is likely to weigh on the confidence of exporters and investors worldwide. The world's largest trading nation posted gloomy data on Friday, with 2016 exports falling 7.7 percent and imports down 5.5 percent. The export drop was the second annual decline in a row and the worst since the depths of the global crisis in 2009. It will be tough for foreign trade to improve this year, especially if the inauguration of Trump and other major political changes limit the growth of China's exports due to greater protectionist measures, the country's customs agency said on Friday. "The trend of anti-globalization is becoming increasingly evident, and China is the biggest victim of this trend," customs spokesman Huang Songping told reporters. "We will pay close attention to foreign trade policy after Trump is inaugurated president,” Huang said. Trump will be sworn in on...

  Last week’s arrival of the first batch of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) locomotives has done little to quell public debate on whether Kenya really got value for money. The jury is also still out on the number of hours it will take to shuttle between Nairobi and Mombasa, with opinion divided on the maximum speed of both the passenger and freight trains. While Ethiopia’s electric train attracted much fanfare, Kenya’s diesel engine locomotives were welcomed last Monday with mockery, likening them to century-old trains. A random search online shows that the Dongfeng 11 (DF11) model was produced between 1992 and 2005, with a total of 459 units having been made.Transport experts say train journeys are nothing new in Kenya, with East Africa Shuttles and safaris putting the number of travellers who have travelled between Nairobi and Mombasa in the past 10 years at more than 2,000. However, the journey usually takes 17 hours over the narrow gauge railway, the only consolation being the a relaxed view through the scenic Tsavo National park. ALSO READ: It's all systems go as Mombasa port gears up for SGR locomotives arrival The arrival of the Dongfeng 11 (DF11) diesel locomotives has created a buzz with the expectation that they will halve the time it takes to travel by road - which is the most preferred means of transport for many Kenyans - to four hours, an immense improvement on the 17 hours by rail by any standard. Not everybody, however, is optimistic...

IN SUMMARY Last year, EAC Council of Ministers did not formulate any proposals to be adopted. Kenya is now banking on the Council of Ministers who will convene in a fortnight to persuade its regional partners to finalise discussions on the ratification of the EPA by the February 2 deadline. The East African Community Heads of State Summit, which was to be held in the first week of this month, has been pushed to next month, after the regional ministers of trade and East African affairs failed to agree on some of the issues to be ratified, top among them being the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union. This has caused anxiety in Kenya, which is now banking on the EAC Council of Ministers who will convene in a fortnight to persuade its regional partners to finalise discussions on the ratification of the EPA by the February 2 deadline. “The ministers have been having back-and-forth discussions over these issues since November. Had the ministers agreed on the issues, then we would have seen a Heads of State Summit later this month, at which the EPA signing would have been timely because of the European Union deadline,” a source said. “However, this wasn’t the case, and the Ministers will now meet in the week of January 23.” East African Community Affairs Principal Secretary Betty Maina confirmed that the summit will take place in February, because the council did not finish its business last year and has therefore not formulated...

The United States has strengthened its position as Kenya’s third-largest export destination — making it Nairobi’s most valuable economic partner outside East Africa. Kenya’s exports to the US grew seven per cent to Sh35.3 billion in the first 10 months of 2016 as exports to Britain tumbled by a similar margin to Sh30.9 billion, according to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) data. The growth saw American consumers open a Sh4.4 billion gap over their counterparts in the UK, wider than the Sh2 billion in 2014 when the US first outpaced Britain to become the third largest importer of Kenyan goods after Uganda and the Netherlands. The KNBS data also shows that the US overtook Britain for the first time as the top source of foreign tourists who visited Kenya in the year to October 2016, cementing its position as a crucial source of dollar inflows in addition to diaspora remittances. International trade experts said local traders are increasingly opening more supply channels to the US, helped by increased interactions with American investors. “Besides the renewal of Agoa [the African Growth and Opportunity Act], Kenya’s increased visibility on the global map is as a result of conferences like the Global Entrepreneurship summit that attracted US President Barack Obama,” said Joseph Kosure, a consultant in international trade. Kenya is a beneficiary of the preferential trade pact, Agoa, which allows sub-Saharan African countries to export goods to America tax-free. Textiles and apparel account for about 80 per cent of Kenya’s total exports...

Activists are working tirelessly for an East African Community (EAC) gender barometer, a lobby and advocacy tool measuring implementation of gender equality commitments by partner states, to be set up. According to Elizabeth Ampairwe, the coordinator for women and girls’ empowerment at the Eastern African Sub-Regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI), they are “in the final stages” and working towards having it published by end of February before a regional meeting is held to launch it in April. “We started with country reports, and then moved on to consolidate the reports for a comparative analysis. Key advocacy issues will be picked and policy briefs produced once the process is finalised,” Ampairwe told Sunday Times from Kampala, Uganda. “The purpose is to generate evidence for holding leaders accountable on gender equality.” The inspiration of the EAC gender barometer comes from the work done by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a 15-member grouping of southern African states. Gender Links, a Southern African NGO committed to gender equality reportedly helped champion the SADC project. “They successfully advocated for a SADC gender protocol and they do annual assessments through a SADC gender barometer. They came to Uganda and trained us to spearhead the EAC process which is a replica,” she said. Ampairwe said donors are interested in taking the same agenda to West Africa, and that the AU is already looking for a continental gender barometer. “This process has a big future and the sustainability is almost assured,” she said....

IN SUMMARY But the report also warned that the government’s deficit remained high in Kenya and had widened in Uganda and Ethiopia. The report said that Sub-Saharan Africa growth is expected to pick up modestly to 2.9 per cent in 2017 as the region continues to adjust to lower commodity prices. The Kenyan economy will grow by six per cent this year and stay steady at 6.1 per cent over the next two years, according to the latest World Bank Global Economic Prospects report released this week. Kenya’s projected growth rates are above those of Uganda, which will vary between 5.6 and 6.0 per cent over the next three years, but below Tanzania’s at over 7.0 per cent; and considerably below East Africa’s star performer Ethiopia at under nine per cent. The East Africa region as a whole will continue to see some of the fastest growth rates over the next three years, the report said. A key factor in Kenya’s success has been currency stability, which has helped keep inflation under control and within the target range of the Central Bank. This has resulted in lowering interest rates for the economy, the report added. But the report also warned that the government’s deficit remained high in Kenya and had widened in Uganda and Ethiopia. Confirming other recent reports such as the Economist Intelligence Unit, the World Bank said large infrastructure development projects continue to support robust growth backed by public-private partnerships. External funding for infrastructure grew fastest in the...

IN SUMMARY Mining secretary Dan Kazungu said his ministry would push for a change in the law during the next budget to rein in the black market. Mr Kazungu said the country is losing unquantified but monumental taxes as a smuggling gateway and hub. Kenya is moving to curb illegal mineral trade fuelled by smuggling syndicates through roping in key agencies including the central bank and Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) as well as granting generous tax incentives to traders. Mining secretary Dan Kazungu said his ministry would push for a change in the law during the next budget to rein in the black market. “We are working round the clock to ensure that the next Finance Bill that accompanies Budget 2017/2018 has provisions that gives the mining sector a lot of incentives and leeway to help it leapfrog,” he said. “The plan is to advocate zero-rating mineral inflows and fast tracking entry of mineral inflows at border points by working closely with the taxman. We want to make the black market an unattractive option.” Mr Kazungu said the country is losing unquantified but monumental taxes as a smuggling gateway and hub. The Ministry of Mining on Wednesday announced a high level multiagency committee to clamp down on the illicit trade and come up with ways of openly trading in the commodity. The team includes the ministry officials, the Treasury, Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, the KRA, Kenya Airports Authority, Kenya Ports...

Supported by the African Agri Council, and hosted by Hypenica, the inaugural Agri Logistics and e-Agri East Africa Summits 2017 are taking place in Nairobi, Kenya from 28 February to 1 March 2017. A delegation of international ICT, logistics and transport infrastructure professionals, together with a line-up of East African agricultural thought leaders, will address the challenges faced by the agricultural sector in the region and to look at ways to unlock the region’s potential. Growing trade volumes in the East African region provides both opportunities and challenges for the agriculture sector. Perishable products often suffer from supply-chain delays and post-harvest losses in remote areas, mostly due to poor infrastructure, lack of appropriate transport systems and a lack of refrigerated transport and storage. Furthermore, the innovative utilisation of African-appropriate technologies and solutions for improved production and increased productivity is often neglected. According to Nico Loretz, Programme Manager, the Agri Logistics and e-Agri East Africa Summits 2017, “It is against this background that the African Agri Council and Hypenica are hosting these two co-located events: It is the only platform of its kind in Africa that brings together proven innovative e-agriculture solutions for preventing post-harvest losses, improved production and increased productivity to improve the supply chain process from farmer to market and to enhance food security in the region.” The joint keynote plenary session, chaired by Ali Mufuruki, Chairman, TradeMark Africa (TMA) and CEO of Infotech Investment Group Ltd will look at a regulatory framework, opportunities in trade agreements, investment needs...

East African Community (EAC) states cannot collectively or individually afford to neglect the development of their manufacturing sector, a UN official has said. In his publication on the challenges of industrialisation within the EAC, Andrew Mold, officer-in-charge of the Sub-regional Office for Eastern Africa (SRO-EA) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ENECA), says the best option for the development of EAC industry is to focus on both ‘recapturing domestic markets’ and simultaneously exploiting better the potential of regional markets.” He observes that there are indeed a lot of promising developments across the region that could potentially facilitate greater industrial and manufacturing production. Speaking to The New Times, yesterday,, Mold said the research paper tries to acknowledge the difficulty in terms of industrialisation in the East African Community, adding that the EAC does not have the budget “to make things happen” but individual countries do. “All five countries are suffering similar constraints in terms of industrialisation. The way forward is not the international market but they need to look more at the regional market, including the wider region such as the market in DR Congo,” he said. The EAC industrialisation strategy – whose vision is a globally competitive, environment-friendly and sustainable industrial sector, capable of significantly improving the living standards of the people of East Africa by 2032 – identifies sectors in which the region has potential. However, the paper indicates that the principal problem is that the region on its own has no way of implementing the policies...

The year 2014 started on a good note in the annals of EAC integration. This is because it started with a new travel experience for EAC citizens. This is the use of the national Identity Card as an authentic travel document between Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda. The development was a result of initiatives agreed upon under the Northern Corridor Integration Projects (NCIP). The NCIP started as a tripartite engagement of three Presidents, Yoweri Museveni (Uganda), Paul Kagame (Rwanda) and Uhuru Kenyatta (Kenya) at Entebbe, Uganda on June 25, 2013, to discuss how to co-operate and expedite implementation of commitments agreed upon under the EAC arrangement. It was initially meant to speed up the flow of cargo, construction of the Standard Gauge Railway, crude oil pipeline and refined petroleum products pipeline. It later, however, expanded to include extra clusters that handle ICT, Oil Refinery, Political Federation, Financing, Power Generation, Transmission and Interconnectivity, Commodity Exchanges, Human Resource Capacity Building and Land.  In addition, there are also Clusters that handle Immigration, Trade, Tourism, Labour and Services, Single Customs Territory, Mutual Defence Cooperation, Mutual Peace and Security Cooperation and Airspace Management. It was against this background that the three Heads of State agreed to recognise the National Identity Card as a travel document within the EAC in addition to the national passports and the EAC passport. (The EAC passport has since been upgraded to a new generation e-passport to replace national passports and its issuance has been planned to commence this year). Thus, in...