Mombasa — The cost of clearing cargo at the port of Mombasa and of transport along the Northern Corridor has gone down by 30% since the implementation of the East African Single Customs Territory (SCT). Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Commissioner General John Njiraini was recently speaking during a two-day meeting peer review and learning session focused on the SCT. The East African nations are integrating their customs systems to make it possible for the three countries to have a regional bond for goods in transit. This will substantially cut the costs of handling transit cargo and make it more convenient for importers across the region. Njiraini said, "We want to ensure faster clearance of goods at the first point of entry within East Africa, SCT is being implemented in three phases. beginning with bulk cargo such as fuel, wheat grain and clinker used in cement manufacturing. Phase two handles containerized cargo and motor vehicles while the third phase will handle Intra-regional trade among countries implementing the SCT Tripartite arrangement. Njiraini said, "These measures are designed to provide a sound platform to refocus Customs and Border Control operations to address security and revenue collection." Mid last year, the EAC nations agreed to integrate their customs systems to make it possible to have a regional bond for goods in transit. In 2005 the five Partner States set out to establish a Customs Union when they signed the Custom Union Protocol. When the formalities for establishing the CU were completed, a Customs Union...

The revival of East African Community 15 years ago during the NRM rule has placed the region in the metropolis on the global map increased market size of the region, led to high economic growth among benefits that comes with integration. Regional economic integration is one way countries achieve national interests only in concert with others. It expands national markets to the region. Like globalization, it can be thought of as an alternative to international embeddedness or how one or countries relates to the rest of the world. Learning from international experience and reorganizing the importance of regional integration, the establishment of the Permanent Tripartite Commission for East African Co-operation, was signed by President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya and Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania.   Revival of East African community 30 November, 1993 - permanent tripartite commission for East African co-operation established. On March 14, 1996 – the co-operation secretariat was launched in Arusha as the executive arm of the tripartite commission. On November 30, 1999 - the treaty establishing the east African community is signed. On July 7, 2000 –the treaty entry into force of the treaty and coming into being of the new EAC was realized and was launched on January 15, 2001 by the three heads of state. President Museveni has been at the fore front that East African economies should develop through regional integration over the last 15 years the EAC regional integration has proven itself on the international stage and has...

African governments have been working to establish a monetary union for the past several years, and the benefits of such a move cannot be overstated. By 2024, the East African Community will have unprecedented cross-border exchange that will revolutionise member economies and foreign investment prospects. The system will spare investors the headaches and expenses of currency conversion, and that improvement alone will make the region more attractive. However, the East African Community should heed the eurozone’s economic troubles as it works toward implementing its own monetary union. Greece defaulted on US$1.7-billion in debt it owed the International Monetary Fund in 2015, leading it to the brink of exiting the eurozone. It also provided a sobering example of what can go wrong in such an economic bloc. If the East African monetary union is to avoid such crises, its leaders must address the following concerns before 2024: 1. Macroeconomic Convergence Volatile foreign exchange and inflation trends should evoke concern about macroeconomic convergence in East Africa. Stark variances exist among the member states’ currencies, such as the Rwandan franc and the Ugandan and Tanzanian shillings, and there could be troublesome spillover among East African Community economies. However, some regional countries appear to be working together ahead of the monetary union. Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda recently created a single tourist visa that make it easier for international visitors to tour the three countries. This is aimed to bolster tourism and is geared to attract investors who see regional mobility improving. These three countries...

The 2015 Africa Tourism Monitor has uncovered that visa simplification schemes have the potential to further boost tourism revenue and job creation by between 5% and 25%, and thus far supporting visa facilitation initiatives, including e-visa and regional visa cooperation, have already led to immense economic benefits for countries that have adopted this approach. This revelation comes at a time when SADC states are preparing to expand the KAZA (Kavango Zambezi) visa, a common tourist visa developed by Zambia and Zimbabwe, which has been identified as the first step towards a SADC uni-visa. The Tourism Monitor published by the African Development Bank (AfDB), further indicates that the continental tourism sector is growing. The report attributes this growth to various initiatives aimed at boosting the industry which include the simplification of visa systems and regional cooperation mechanisms through the KAZA visa and East African Community (EAC) uni-visa. According to the report the African tourism sector grew by 4% in 2014, making it the second fastest- growing tourist destination (Southeast Asia grew by 6%). In 2014, a total of 65.3 million international tourists visited the continent, which is a significant leap from the 17.4million that visited the continent in 1990. Among the top five African countries for tourist arrivals were two SADC states South Africa in 3rd place and Zimbabwe in 5th place while Botswana topped Lonely Planet’s list of best places to visit in 2016, beating out countries such as The United States of America and Japan for first place. The...

Thinking of traversing Africa in search of trade and investment opportunities? You may need to consider what parts of the continent to focus on in terms of flexibility in travel and how visa-open the destination country is. According to the Africa Visa Openness Report 2016 published  by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the most visa-open countries are found in West Africa and East Africa. A massive 75 percent of countries in the top 20 most visa-open countries are in West Africa or East Africa. Surprisingly, only one in North Africa and none in Central Africa are in the top 20 most visa-open countries—underlining the challenges the continent faces in boosting its trade and investment profile. East Africa has the bulk (45 percent) of the top most visa-open countries including Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda. West Africa has the second largest cluster (30 percent) of the top most visa open countries including Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and Togo, according to the index. The Southern African bloc is ranked third in terms of visa openness in four countries that include Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique and Zambia. Seamless borders are no doubt a boon to trade and investment world over because of free movement labor, goods and capital. The fruits of an open visa policy have been supported by the formal adoption of the European Union (EU) Schengen Agreement in 1995 that abolished the EU’s internal borders, enabling passport-free movement across most of the bloc. The deal helped the...

MOMBASA, KENYA - The cost of clearing cargo at the port of Mombasa and of transport along the Northern Corridor has gone down by 30% since the implementation of the East African Single Customs Territory (SCT). Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Commissioner General John Njiraini was recently speaking during a two-day meeting peer review and learning session focused on the SCT. The East African nations are integrating their customs systems to make it possible for the three countries to have a regional bond for goods in transit. This will substantially cut the costs of handling transit cargo and make it more convenient for importers across the region. Njiraini said, “We want to ensure faster clearance of goods at the first point of entry within East Africa, SCT is being implemented in three phases. beginning with bulk cargo such as fuel, wheat grain and clinker used in cement manufacturing. Phase two handles containerized cargo and motor vehicles while the third phase will handle Intra-regional trade among countries implementing the SCT Tripartite arrangement. Njiraini said, “These measures are designed to provide a sound platform to refocus Customs and Border Control operations to address security and revenue collection.” Mid last year, the EAC nations agreed to integrate their customs systems to make it possible to have a regional bond for goods in transit. In 2005 the five Partner States set out to establish a Customs Union when they signed the Custom Union Protocol. When the formalities for establishing the CU were completed, a Customs Union came...

Kenya Railways has allayed fears that the Standard Gauge Railway will push truck owners out of business and render thousands of drivers jobless. There has been talk 80 per cent of cargo from the Port of Mombasa will be reserved for the SGR so that the project remains viable. On Sunday however Kenya Railways Managing Director Atanas Maina said the highest cargo preference the parastatal could enjoy was 50 per cent. "Last year 24 million tonnes of cargo passed through the port and is projected to reach 26 million tonnes this year increasing to over 30 million tonnes in 2025. If the SGR takes about 50 per cent, there will still be business for local transporters," he said. "The project is of national and regional strategic importance and as the implementing agency we are keen and actively engaged to ensure it is completed on time and as per contractual specifications," he said. The Parliamentary Committee on Transport, Public Works and Housing said the railway is more than 65 per cent complete. Committee Chairman Maina Kamanda said that after travelling from Nairobi to Mombasa on an inspection tour of the line, they were satisfied that the contractor would finish the work by June next year as agreed. "We are impressed by the progress; several sections along the line have started taking shape from the actual track to the sub-stations along the 472 kilometre SGR line," he said. GOOD JOB SO FAR The two were addressing journalists near the Kenya Ports Authority...

NAIROBI: Kenya and Nigeria are seeking to establish a duty-free trade zone between the two countries. This comes following trade talks between Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta. Buhari, who is accompanied by more than three dozen business leaders and investors, winds up his three-day visit today with President Uhuru Kenyatta expected to visit Nigeria in six-months’ time. “We have agreed to have a unit in Kenya and Nigeria that will be concerned with facilitating all interactions concerning trade between these two countries,” said Mr Kiprono Kittony, the chairman of the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI). In Kenya, the unit will be housed under the KNCCI’s Nigeria-Kenya business council and chaired by Equity Bank CEO James Mwangi while in Nigeria it will be chaired by Sani Dangote, brother of Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote and vice president of the Dangote Group. “We’ve identified several areas in agro-processing including cotton, tea, horticulture and dairy products that both Nigeria and Kenya can work together in expanding trade between the two countries,” said Mr Dangote. “East Africa is a market of about 150 million people and we have ECOWAS which is more than 350 million-strong and we want the Kenya-Nigeria business council to have its own office so that it can be dedicated to collecting data and facilitating interactions on this agenda,” he said. Kenya’s business community on the other hand expressed the need for policy makers in Nigeria to ease the cost of doing business...

The East African region is likely to face stiff competition from Southern Africa countries after members of three trade blocs that merged last year agreed to disregard sensitive products in order to ensure fair competition. The 26-member states forming the Tripartite Free Trade Area have agreed that 80 per cent of tariff lines will be liberalised upon implementation of the agreement in June and the remaining 20 per cent will be negotiated over five to eight years. TFTA brings together members of the East African Community, the Common Market for Southern and Eastern Africa and the South Africa Development Community. This is a reversal of the earlier agreement of having restrictions on the entry of the sensitive goods until 2017 to allow industries to adjust to the competition expected from cheaper products. This effectively opens the door for stiff competition for EAC goods from South Africa and Egyptian exports. Among the products earlier listed for protection were sugar, maize, cement, wheat, rice, textiles, milk and cream, meslin grain and flour, cane and beet sugar, khangas, kikois, kitenges, second-hand clothes, beverages, spirits, plastics, electronic equipment and paper materials. All these will be subject to duty and quota restrictions. “With an agreement to liberalise up to 80 per cent of the goods to other countries, each country or trading bloc like EAC will agree on what goods to liberalise and which ones not to,” said Mark Ogot, senior assistant director at Kenya’s Ministry of East African Affairs, Commerce and Tourism and a tripartite expert, adding that...

Most of the tea produced in region sold at the Mombasa auction, the world’s largest market for the leaves EAST African tea exports to Iran are expected to jump more than fivefold by 2019 as trade ties with the Persian Gulf nation normalise after western sanctions were lifted, a regional tea traders’ association said. Shipments from nations including Kenya, the world’s biggest exporter of black tea, may climb to 20,000 metric tons within the next four years from a record low of 3,200 tons last year, said Edward Mudibo, managing director of the East African Trade Association. “The potential for the Iran market could be five-fold the current status without the restrictions there had been over the past five years,” Mudibo said in a phone interview Wednesday from the port city of Mombasa. Iran is among the world’s 10 biggest tea-consuming nations, with consumption estimated at 83,400 tons in 2013, according to Food and Agriculture Organisation statistics. Financial and trade sanctions imposed by the U.S. and European countries because of its nuclear program curbed access to foreign currency and limited Iranian buyers’ ability to transact. That posed “payment challenges” to East African tea exporters from Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, Mudibo said. Most of the tea produced in East Africa is sold at the Mombasa auction, the world’s largest market for the leaves. The weekly sale handled 358.6 million kilograms (791 million pounds) in 2015, compared with 390.2 million kilogrammes a year earlier, according to data compiled by Tea Brokers East...