Global trade and investment rules will top the agenda for the upcoming United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) XIV to be held in Nairobi in two months. The meeting themed “Translating Agenda 2030 Decisions into Actions”, will take place from July 17-22 at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre. “This is the first Unctad conference after the adoption of Agenda 2030 and sustainable development goals in September 2015. It will, therefore, seek to operationalise the synergies that exist between various outcomes, including the 10th World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference, COP21 on Climate Change, as well as the International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa, last year,” says a brief of the agenda for the conference seen by the Nation. The forum will coincide with a world leaders’ summit, which will see Heads of State and government hold “frank exchange of views with the business leaders on the vision for investment in the context of sustainable development,” according to the note. Over 250 heads of delegation, 4,000 government delegates and 2,000 business and civil society representatives are expected to attend the multi-stakeholder conference from 194 United Nations member countries. “It is expected the conference will provide an opportunity to dialogue on the balance between trade-rule making process and investment regulations,” explains the brief. KENYA'S PROFILE Besides the trade agenda, Nairobi believes the conference will reinforce Kenya’s high profile standing within the United Nations as an active member and contributor to the international economic order. “It will cement Kenya’s position...

Rwanda is focusing on developing proposed rail links to ports on the Indian Ocean through Tanzania first because it’s cheaper and shorter than a route transiting Kenya, Finance Minister Claver Gatete said. Studies done by member states in the six-nation East African Community showed that the Tanzanian option would cost about $800 million to $900 million, Gatete said in an interview Thursday at the World Economic Forum on Africa in the capital, Kigali. The Kenyan project would cost $1 billion, he said. “We are working on the Dar es Salaam one, which will be cheaper because it’s the shortest route,” Gatete said. Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda in 2013 agreed to link up to the Kenyan port of Mombasa along a standard-gauge railway estimated to cost $13 billion. The project was scheduled to be completed by March 2018. The East African, a Nairobi-based newspaper, reported on May 3 that Rwanda was in talks with Tanzania and Burundi about a shared route through their countries instead, because Uganda’s plans to develop a link to its northern neighbor South Sudan would delaying the Rwandan portion of the project. Kenya Snub It’s the second time Kenyan may lose out on plans to develop regional infrastructure. Last month, Tanzanian President John Magufuli secured an agreement to have a pipeline in western Uganda routed to its port of Tanga. That scuppered an accord between Kenya and Uganda in October 2015 for the conduit to pass through northern Kenya to a proposed port at Lamu. The railway route...

African economies must reduce trade barriers and make it easier for people and goods to cross borders to boost growth in the face of headwinds from a commodity price drop, African officials and delegates at the World Economic Forum in Rwanda said. The International Monetary Fund said average growth in sub-Saharan Africa would fall to its lowest in nearly two decades this year, at 3 percent, with commodity exporters struggling and government finances coming under pressure. "As we develop the regional markets in Africa, we’ll reduce the susceptibility of Africa to these global commodity price shocks," African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina told a news conference in the Rwandan capital Kigali. Trade between African nations accounted for just 11 percent of total transactions, compared with Asia where regional trade accounted for 40 percent and Europe where it was 70 percent. Adesina said there were some positive signs - Africa-to-Africa investment had climbed, rising from $10 billion to $50 billion a year - although he didn't give a time frame. But he said high tariffs and non-tariff barriers such as poor roads, railways and ports hindered progress. "If there were a real willingness to dismantle trade barriers, you could get growth gains regardless of what was happening in the rest of the world because of broader markets," said Razia Khan, Africa economist at Standard Chartered Bank. While there are several trading blocs in Africa, few have acted swiftly to completely dismantle barriers to commerce, though the six-member East African Community...

African economies have changed and trade relations need to evolve since the U.S. first started offering duty-free access to certain countries under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, said U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman in a Bloomberg interview. Since AGOA first started in 2000, African economies have become more integrated and they’ve changed in terms of demographics, development and technology, Froman said in Kigali, Rwanda, at the World Economic Forum. A deadline is looming for Froman’s office to update Congress on sub-Saharan African countries that want to negotiate free-trade agreements with the U.S., Politico reported. The U.S. is consulting with African officials, business leaders and regional experts on what should happen next. Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 1 percent of U.S. trade in 2015, according to Bloomberg. When AGOA was renewed in 2015 for 10 years, Congress mandated a progress report and re-evaluation of the overall trade and investment relationship between the U.S. and sub-Sahara by June 29, the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama signing the bill into law. “It’s time to start looking at what comes next,” Froman told Bloomberg. “Part of what motivates us is that we are hearing from Africans that they want to move towards a more permanent, reciprocal kind of relationship.” Many in Congress have grown tired of extending one-way trade preferences to Africa without gaining reciprocal access for U.S. goods, Politico reported. The U.S. started free-trade talks with South Africa and other members of the Southern African Customs Union in 2003, but never reached a deal....

Kampala’s decision a blow for Kenya’s oil ambitions in eastern Africa, although presidents say they will continue to work together on oil projects Uganda is to route its oil exports through Tanzania after a report found the country was a cheaper and more secure option than its other east African neighbour Kenya. Uganda is to use Tanga, a seaport city about 200km north of Dar es Salaam, to export its crude oil, rather than Lamu in Kenya. The announcement was made last month at the East African Community (EAC) summit held just outside Uganda’s capital, Kampala. Uganda said a pipeline between Kabaale, in Hoima district, and Tanga, of about 1,400km, will be the most cost-effective route when Uganda begins exporting oil by 2020. Map showing pipeline route and locations of Lokichar and Lamu Having had a pipeline route through Kenya rejected by Uganda, Kenya plans to build a pipeline from Lokichar in its oil-rich Turkana region to Lamu, where it is building a port, close to the border with Somalia. “President Yoweri Museveni [of Uganda] and I have announced that Kenya will embark on the construction of the Lamu-Lokichar pipeline while Uganda will build the other pipeline through its southern borders,” wrote Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, on Facebook. “We have, however, agreed to continue cooperating on petroleum issues since both countries are new in the industry.” In March, Museveni and Kenyatta asked experts from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to assess both routes and, in a report last month, Ugandan experts...

A new action agenda to help African economies improve their economic competitiveness has been published by the World Economic Forum, the African Development Bank, OECD and the World Bank. The agenda comes at a time when shocks such as low commodity prices and a strong US dollar have highlighted the region’s chronic lack of competitiveness and the need for urgent diversification. Africa’s competitiveness challenges are well known and have been highlighted in the Forum’s “Africa Competitiveness Report” series since 1998. In a quest for long-term solutions to this chronic challenge, the four partners staged a series of high-level competitiveness workshops across Africa’s regional economic communities (RECs) between October 2015 and April 2016 with the aim of prioritising actions available to leaders. The resulting “Action Agenda for Raising Africa’s Competitiveness” synthesises more than 120 recommendations of more than 200 participants from government, business, academia, international organisations and civil society from across the East African Community (EAC), Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and francophone North Africa. Across all regions, two elements were emphasized by participants: * Better public and private collaboration can be achieved by increasing levels of trust, establishing regular channels of collaboration and consultation, agreeing on a shared vision and working towards shared goals. * Greater regional integration can improve competitiveness and growth by opening markets, leveraging economies of scale, lowering costs and increasing the diversity of goods and services. Partners collaborated with the Rwanda Development Board and Brand South Africa for...

The African Union (AU) said on Saturday it has started the process of issuing the continent’s passport. Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Amina Mohamed told a briefing in Nairobi that African ministers of foreign Affairs have began filling in the forms for the Africa passport which will be issued at the AU summit in July. “I have the honor to inform you that in line with the decisions of the AU Summit of Heads of State and Government to facilitate free movement throughout the continent, through the creation of African Passport for Heads of States and Ministers, the issuance process commenced on Friday,” Mohamed said on the sidelines of the Fourth AU Executive Council Retreat. This is the first time the retreat is being held in Kenya as previous ones were hosted by South Africa and Ethiopia. African Passport holders should receive a 30 day visa on arrival at all AU member states. Mohamed said that regional economic blocs such as the East African Community have already introduced regional passport to ease travel within the blocs. “The African passport will build on the success achieved by the trading blocs and help to achieve the dream of free movement of Africans across the continent,” she said. The CS noted that the continental passport will help to speed up the process of establishment of the Africa Economic Community. “It will also boost intra-Africa trade that is below the level of other continents,” she added. Source:...

President Uhuru Kenyatta has called for the elimination of cross-border trade barriers in Africa. Unnecessary hurdles imposed by various states are hampering movement of goods and people, and in effect standing in the way to collective development. Mr Kenyatta said this in an interactive session at the ongoing World Economic Forum for Africa in Kigali where he was a panellist. “We need to be focused on crushing the barriers that are stopping trade and intra-Africa connectivity,” said the President Kenyatta who was on the panel with Nigerian billionaire philanthropist Tony Elumelu. Under the theme, ‘Connecting Africa’s Resources Through Digital Transformation’, the business and government leaders attending the forum hope to create stronger trade ties between the various countries, as a means to achieve growth. Kenyatta said a proper road linking Kenya and Ethiopia would be complete by end of the year, as an example of the cross border connectivity that his government is pushing for in the region. Kenya expects to tap into the 100 million-plus population that is the Ethiopian market. Slowing growth in the developed economies has depressed demand and prices for African produce, mainly agricultural and minerals, translating to poorer households in the continent. It is the reason that African countries needed to find new markets for their produce closer home, unlike in the present case where there exists a glut in one country and a biting shortage of the same commodity in the other. “Given the current economic environment, we must break down trade barriers within...

Kenya received a major boost in its efforts to connect its economy to northern landlocked markets on Wednesday after the rich countries formed an African hub to mobilise $20 billion for cross-border infrastructure projects. The Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (Lapsset) corridor is among the 16 regional projects set to benefit from a mix of philanthropic and development financing targeted under the initiative announced in Kigali. The regional hub dedicated to African projects was made public by the Sustainable Development Investment Partnership (SDIP) on the first day of the World Economic Forum (WEF). SDIP is an initiative hosted by the forum and a host of rich countries working under the aegis of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The SDIP Africa Hub will mobilise blended finance, which combines funding from private investors and lenders, governments and philanthropic funds. BLENDED FINANCE “The SDIP Africa Hub is an important first step to accelerate the engagement of SDIP members on the continent” said Mr Terri Toyota, the head of the Foundations Community and Development Finance and member of the Executive Committee of the WEF. He added: “We envision the hub building local capacity to advance blended finance best practices for infrastructure investment and ensure a consistent pipeline of projects for the initiative from Africa.” The initiative is likely to be applauded by Kenya, which only recently received a blow after Uganda pulled out of a joint crude oil pipeline designed to run along the corridor to Lamu. Kenya has over the past...

By Geoffrey Irungu Export orders from Uganda improved business conditions in Kenya in April after a slowdown in March, a survey released by CfC Stanbic Bank on Monday. The growth in trade with Uganda resumed in earnest after the conclusion of elections in March according to the bank. "It's business as usual in Uganda after the conclusion of elections in February and hence Kenya's manufacturing exports have been robust," said Jibran Qureishi, regional economist for East Africa at CfC Stanbic Bank. The lender forecast that the completion of the standard gauge railway will further increase the trade with Uganda. The railway line is set to reach Nairobi by mid next year. The railway is planned to be extended to Kisumu and Malaba at the border with Uganda. "As regional infrastructure is bolstered, through developments such as the standard gauge railway, we believe this avenue will continue to show more promise in the coming years," said the bank. The improvement in trading will come as a relief for businesspeople since Uganda has traditionally been Kenya's single largest export market. There has also been considerable unease following the government's failure to clinch an oil pipeline deal to transport Uganda's oil through Kenya. The deal instead went to Tanzania. The latest Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) data released by CfC Stanbic indicates a turnaround in growth of Kenya's private sector, following a substantial slowdown at the end of the first quarter. The PMI picked up from a five-month low to signal robust improvement in...