Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC), in partnership with the USAID East Africa Trade and Investment Hub, on Monday launched nine East African Standards for staple foods. The nine priority product standards reviewed were for maize (grain), wheat, milled rice, dry beans, dry soybeans, maize flour, wheat flour, sorghum flour and millet flour. Among other aspects addressed through the revision of the standards were aflatoxin, moisture content levels and discolouration of grains. The nine product standards for staple foods and two standards for sampling and test methods are expected to become legally binding in all EAC partner state in June 2018 and could increase grain trade between Rwanda and the rest of the East African region, according to EAGC. Speaking at the forum, the EAGC executive director Gerald Masila said smooth adoption and application of the gazetted standards would see farmers accessing better and greater markets within the region, while consumers would be provided with safe and high-quality food grain products. “The launch of the standards in all EAC countries is meant to ensure a level playing field in the sector and minimize the risk of food shortage in the region by allowing easy movement of grains across states, as well as providing ready market access for farmers in the region,” he said. He added that the survey, conducted by the EAGC in 2013, revealed that safety and quality requirements, sampling and testing methods were key constraints limiting the realisation of structured grain trade within the region. Following the gaps identified...

Improved efficiency and enhanced capacity at the Port of Mombasa holds the key to positioning Kenya as Africa’s industrial hub, logistics experts say. This is particularly the case with the proposed creation of a free-trade zone on the continent, they add. Kenya has been on the frontline in pushing for implementation of the proposed African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), becoming among the very first nations to offer legal backing to the treaty through a Bill in the National Assembly. AfCFTA is expected to establish a single market with duty-free access among traders in Africa in a bid to spur industrialisation, infrastructure development and economic diversification across the continent whose market is estimated in the upwards of 1.2 billion people. “About 80 per cent of trade will go through the port and if those ports are not as efficient or reliable as they could be, then it will have a direct impact on your competitiveness as a country and the price of goods coming into the country,” said Andrew Shaw, the lead transport and logistics consultant for Africa at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), in a recent interview in Nairobi. “Ports can be the bottlenecks, but they can also be the conduits to enhancing trade for countries and regions.” Africa has been tipped as the next destination for global industrialists fleeing rising operating costs in China, offering Kenya an opportunity to position herself as a cost-effective location. The World Bank Group in 2011 estimated that about 80 million jobs were likely to leave...

In a bid to keep cargo dry and safe during the rainy season, haulage companies prefer using detachable drop sides, which are efficient for transporting loose bagged goods. Studies show tarpaulins, a heavy-duty waterproof clothe used in drop sides are useful for keeping hold of loose bulk cargo that might be affected by the movement of the truck. “They are efficient when a company is moving loose cargo such as packages and pallets when there is heavy rain like now. It allows the use of tarpaulin as it also holds the cargo in place, thus they will not get wet or damaged. At the moment we are not using the drop sides but we had them last year when transporting bagged cargo,” said Transeast, a heavy haulage and transport company with a fleet size of over 130 trucks. The firm has operational bases in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “We detached from the trailers because we did not have specific cargo for their use. With containerised cargo, we are using the same trailers but with no drop sides, just flatbed trailers,” the firm said. According to a study on the performance standards for the safe carriage of loads on road vehicles, drop side trailers are useful in transporting loose bulk goods as they enable easier loading. “Loose bulk loads include quarry products, primary produce and demolition and waste material. These can be carried in tippers, drop-sided vehicles and tankers,” read the report. “Tarpaulins also act as...

A vessel carrying over 6,000 twenty foot equivalent units (Teus) docked at the Mombasa port on Monday, signalling an era of growth in trans shipment business at the facility. Liberian flagged Mv MSC Portugal which has a capacity of 6,550 Teus is 304 metres long, 40 metres wide with a depth of 14.5 metres and is one of the largest vessels to call at the port. The arrival of the vessel was a culmination of marketing efforts in Europe, Middle East and Asia following expansion of capacity at the facility, said William Ruto, the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) general manager operations and harbour master. “When a large vessel calls at a port there is the advantage of economies of scale because it is economical for shipping lines to operate one big vessel to a region than send several ships with low capacity. Once containers are offloaded in Mombasa smaller vessels will be used to distribute cargo to other ports within the region,” he said. When shipping lines move huge volumes of cargo using one vessel, there are lower running costs with shippers offering competitive freight rates. Mr Ruto said they expected ships with a higher capacity to keep calling at the port after expansion of the terminal and deepening of the harbour to accommodate larger vessels. The KPA targets to increase transshipment business from the current two per cent of total cargo handled to about 10 per cent in 2025. With the port handling 27 million tonnes in 2017, this...

The future of Kenya’s trade with the European Union looks bleak, with the country staring at Brexit uncertainties and unwillingness by East Africa Community members’ to ratify the Economic Partnership Agreement. While the country’s trade has been gravitating towards the East in recent times, President Uhuru Kenyatta recently pitched tent in the United Kingdom in what was seen as a fence mending visit to the region that has been Kenya’s biggest export market for a long time. Kenya’s imports from the EU bloc continued to decline for the second consecutive year, dropping to Sh206.5 billion last year. The value of imports from the two leading source countries— Germany and UK— jointly declined by five per cent to Sh73 billion in 2017. According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics' latest Economic Survey Kenya’s exports to Europe rose by 3.6 per cent to Sh125.6 billion in 2017. This constituted only 21.1 per cent of total exports. The value of total exports to Netherlands, United Kingdom, France and Belgium went up, jointly amounting to Sh96.2 billion in 2017, up from Sh92.9 billion in 2016 while that of Pakistan alone went up from Sh40.3 billion in 2016 to Sh64.1 billion in 2017 A notable decline was also recorded in value of imports from Italy at 5.7 per cent. Spain, Denmark and Ireland recorded 5.7, 11.5 and 53.1 per cent drop respectively. Only import volumes from France, Netherlands and Belgium went up during the year The value of imports from the Far East and...

Dar es Salaam. High taxes charged on grains hinders smooth crop trade among African countries, it has been revealed. Eastern African Grain Council (EAGC) board of directors chairman Eugene Rwibasira told The Citizen recently as he made this revelation. “We recently bought tonnes of maize from farmers in Zambia at the cost of $1,500, but surprisingly, we were charged three times the actual buying price of the commodity for it to be exported elsewhere,” he said. Mr Rwibasira added that since the establishment of EAGC in 2006, the main barrier on grains trade has been import taxes within member states. The main objectives of the EAGC include providing market information, intelligence to support trade to buy and sell grains. He made the revelations on the sidelines of the EAGC annual meeting, which was later followed by the launch of 2018/22 strategic plan to enable boost trade structure, policy advocacy and institutional strengthening. Mr Rwibasira said the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia were prospective members of the council for this year. “We have also received requests from Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius and Sudan. They all want to join us,” he said. EAGC chief executive officer Gerald Masila said the current plan was to establish the EAGC Investment Company that will consolidate services to be offered on commercial basis. He said that the board was currently developing other investments to be offered commercially on the fee basis, in partnership with institutional experts who have a share in the vision and aspirations of...

How far is the rollout of the digital economic integration? The ministers have approved the initiative. The Secretariat completed the preparatory stage, from design to production of the key instruments especially the digital certificate of origin, presented them at several formal government meetings ranging from expert to ministerial level over the course of last year and early this year. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa will formally adopt the instruments at its upcoming summit in Bujumbura from June 1-10, then begin the digital free trade area. What type of feedback did you receive while promoting the digital FTA? The feedback from technical workshops and meetings is positive. Last year at the Digital FTA workshop in Seychelles, every Comesa member state said that it was ready to start using the digital certificate of origin. Customs authorities will have their work simplified once digitised, and users will face less complex procedures once the regulatory authorities begin to process clearances and approvals online. So far, who are the early adopters of the digital free trade area? All member states. In fact, some countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Mauritius and Zambia are already issuing electronic certificates of origin; many are using the self-certification system which is more advanced, when trading with partners such as the European Union. The self-certification system can be used in Comesa trade as well, because the Approved Economic Operators schemes [a certified standard authorisation issued by Customs office in the EU] already provide a basis for an...

Farmers from Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo will benefit from a combined $26 million training by TechnoServe, aimed at increasing production of specialty coffee for export. The non-profit development firm is training 15,000 farmers in eastern DRC under a five-year project funded by the United States Agency for International Development to the tune of $23 million. In western Uganda, the firm is targeting 30,000 growers under a four-year project funded by Germany-based Benckiser Stiftung Zukunft and Enveritas of New York to the tune of $3 million. In the DRC, TechnoServe will train farmers on climate-smart techniques and work with co-operatives to establish and improve processing facilities. The firm’s chief executive William Warshauer said growing global demand for specialty coffee presents an opportunity for farmers in the highlands of South Kivu to earn higher prices for their crop. “While meeting growing consumer demand for unique high-quality coffee, farmers can lift themselves out of poverty and provide better futures for their families,” he said. USAID/DRC mission director Christophe Tocco said the new value chains will improve food security, give farmers and small businesses a viable legitimate income and support economic growth. In western Uganda, TechnoServe will provide agronomy training to Robusta coffee farming families. “Robusta coffee is an important cash crop for more than 1.3 million farmers across the country. With improved farming techniques, farmers can improve coffee yields by an average of 50 per cent,” said TechnoServe. Meanwhile, Starbucks with Swiss food company Nestle have already recruited farmers in...

Kenya has picked Wood Group Plc, a British company, to design its oil pipeline to transport crude from fields in Lokichar, Turkana County in the north to the port of Lamu on the Coast. The announcement last week puts the oil export plan back on track towards commercial production in 2021/22. Kenya plans to build the 892-kilometre pipeline to pump the discovered commercial oil reserves in the Lokichar basin. The project cost is estimated at $2 billion. Petroleum and Mining Principal Secretary Andrew Kamau said the design work would take eight months. This will then be expected to inform the specifications of the pipeline as well as the actual cost. The EastAfrican understands that the British firm, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, was awarded the design contract on Monday. In January, Kenya invited bids for the front end engineering design (Feed) — which helps set the technical requirements for the line — from eight firms it had shortlisted before narrowing it down to two. “We selected the eight firms from a pool of contractors that had submitted applications to be prequalified to undertake the Feed after we sent out a request for expression of interest in 2016,” said Mr Kamau. The environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) started last month as planned, putting into motion the country’s push to have its own pipeline after the original plan for a joint project with Uganda flopped when Kampala looked South to Tanzania in 2017. “The firm has been tasked...

Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are still squabbling over the implementation of the Common Market provisions, despite officials saying a lot of ground has been covered in resolving the issues. This came as Kenyan sugar-based products were denied preferential access to Uganda and Tanzania over the application of the Rules of Origin. For the fourth consecutive month, Cerelac, juice, ice cream and chewing gum from Kenya could not get preferential access to the Tanzanian market. A month ago, Uganda denied Kenyan confectionaries preferential access, arguing that Common External Tariff (CET) should be levied on the products since they were manufactured from industrial sugar imported under a 10 per cent duty remission scheme. Citing a 2017 legal notice, where Kenya was granted duty remission on raw sugar at a duty rate of 0 per cent for one year to manufacture sugar for industrial use, Tanzania is demanding full CET duties of 25 per cent on the products instead of the free access granted to products that meet the EAC origin criteria. However, Kenyan manufacturers argue that the products are not made from raw sugar but rather from industrial sugar imported under the EAC wide duty remission, which attracts 10 per cent levy. The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) argues that only one Kenyan company, which was supposed to produce refined sugar, benefited from the provision for imports under the 0 per cent levy. The firm has yet to utilise to the opportunity. “The denial of entry for Kenyan goods into Tanzania continues despite KRA’s...