If farmers are to feel the benefit of global exports in their pockets, brand-building exercises such as the upcoming Irish trade mission to West Africa must be matched by serious commitments from exporters to markets that will pay for a high-value food product. The value of internationally-traded agri-food products has more than doubled over the last decade and exceeds €700bn.Most of the growth in demand is taking place in emerging and developing markets where demographics, social trends and income growth are leading to increased demand for food. This particular growth trend is primarily of interest to countries that can produce low-cost food commodities. Another emerging market trend - that is of greater interest to exporters from high-cost countries such as Ireland - is the growing segment of discerning middle-class consumers, who value a high-quality and traceable product. It is important that exporters identify the kind of growth market with which they are dealing. For example, the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) is an attractive market in terms of population and income growth. More than 75pc of the world's population growth over the next 15 years will come from this region, which has a forecasted average economic growth rate of 8.4pc, which will facilitate a 35pc increase in per-capita GDP over the next five years. However, the top-line figures are deceptive, since these figures reflect a growing population, which will continue to seek low-cost foods.Even in higher-income countries in the Middle East, the average consumer remains extremely cost-conscious, is...

Used motor vehicles from other East African countries will not be allowed into Kenya without documented waiver from the country's Ministry of Industrialisation and Enterprise Development. Acting Transport secretary James Macharia maintained the eight-year maximum age rule for motor vehicle importation holds. The law bars Kenyans from importing vehicles whose first year of registration is more than eight years. When computing duty, it is the year of first registration that is used to determine the depreciation of the motor vehicles. “Used vehicles will not be allowed into the country without a specific documented waiver from the Ministry of Industrialisation and Enterprise Development” Mr Macharia told the National Assembly Committee on Transport. He said until a protocol that brings the process into uniformity is signed it would be mandatory to seek and obtain the documented waiver. “Does the absence of clear rules mean that this country will be flooded with used vehicles from Uganda and Tanzania in the long run?” posed Starehe MP Maina Kamanda who chairs the committee. The waiver, Mr Macharia said, applies to Kenyans who have been residing in either Tanzania or Uganda during which period they acquired cars and want to return home with them. He said the condition by government is for the good of the country since currently there exists no uniform protocol on car age limits in the EAC member states. There has been mounting concern that individuals are taking advantage of the East African integration to import used cars without adhering to the...

Kenya has formed a committee to drive compliance with a global deal on shipping safety which comes into effect in July next year. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) recently adopted amendments to the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention, which require mandatory verification of the gross weight of every packed export cargo container prior to loading on board a ship. “In ensuring the requirements are implemented, a steering committee has been set up to draft the implementation action plan,” Kenya Ports Authority managing director Gichiri Ndua and the Kenya Maritime Authority acting director-general Cosmas Cherop said on Wednesday. IMO, an agency of the United Nations charged with improving safety and security of shipping and prevention of pollution at sea, currently has 171 member states including Kenya which joined in 1973. The committee comprises of Kenya Maritime Authority, Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Revenue Authority, Kenya Bureau of Standards, Container Freight Stations Associations, Shippers Council of East Africa, Kenya International Freight and Warehousing Association and Kenya Ships Agents Association.The requirement of the Convention will come into force on July 1, 2016. Once in force, packed containers for export cannot be loaded onto a ship unless a verified actual gross mass of the container is provided by the shipper in advance and the shipping documentation state the method used for verification. The convention grants shippers two alternative methods of verifying the gross weight of the packed export cargo containers. Shippers have an option of weighing the packed container using calibrated and certified...

CARGO handled at the Mombasa Port increased by 10.1 per cent between January and September to 19.87 million tonnes, Kenya Ports Authority data shows. This is an increase of 1.82 million tonnes from 18.05 million tonnes handled in a similar period last year. According to KPA, total traffic analysis for the first three quarters of 2015, container traffic recorded a 10.8 per cent increase, from 731,300 TEUs ( twenty-foot equivalent units) to 809,984 TEUs this year. Total transit cargo for the nine month period increased by 10.8 per cent from 5.3 million tonnes in 2014 to 5.8 million tonnes in 2015. Uganda remains the biggest destination of transit cargo, with its volume increasing by 459,227 tonnes (11.3 per cent) to register 4,508,776 tonnes against 4,049,549 tons in the same period last year. “Uganda has continued to maintain a dominant position as our leading transit cargo destination accounting for over 77 per cent share of the total transit traffic,” KPA managing director Gichiri Ndua told port users during a meeting in Kampala. Rwanda's cargo volumes also increased by 31.7 per cent from 169,868 tonnes in 2014 to 223,703 tonnes in 2015. “Having been among the first EAC countries to fully embrace the Single Customs Territory and played a key role in the removal of other non-tariff barriers, we are hopeful for more positive growth of the country’s cargo volumes through Mombasa,” said Ndua at an earlier meeting with port users in Kigali. Other major players were South Sudan at 11 per...

TradeMark Africa has allocated Sh1.02 billion for the implementation of a WTO-backed trade improvement programme for the East African Community partner states. The World Trade Organisation Trade Facilitation Agreement (WTO FTA) focuses on ways of transporting, releasing and clearing goods and compels countries to ensure that trade concerns including taxes, documentation procedures along their transport corridors and ports are completely abolished. The pact is expected to reduce the cost of doing business and complement current efforts of eradicating trade barriers in the region. The agreement was arrived at during the 2013 WTO ministerial conference in Bali, Indonesia, where various decisions — aimed at making trade among the agency’s member states easy — were made. The decisions will also ensure food security and boost trade and overall development.“We have set aside Sh1.02 billion ($10 million) to go towards various projects that will help in implementation of the agreement which is meant to facilitate trade among East Africa partner states,” said TradeMark Africa chief executive Frank Matsaert. Matsaert revealed the figure stating that there was a need for countries to work together in getting rid of barriers that negatively affected trade in the region. Implementation of the agreement is expected to start before the 10th WTO Ministerial conference in mid-December in Nairobi. The conference takes place every two years and brings together member countries and custom unions. Members make decision by consensus. is expected that the cost of doing business between the EAC member states and other markets would reduce by almost...

cargo imported into the country will undergo mandatory inspection at the point of origin starting December 1 as the government moves to enforce a scheme aimed at curbing tax evasion and entry of sub-standard goods. shipped before November 30 will however be exempted from the provisions of pre-export verification of conformity (PVoC) scheme whose objective is to minimise the risk of unsafe and substandard goods entering Kenyan market. Upon the completion of pre-shipment verification procedures, successful importers and exporters are usually handed a certificate of compliance (CoC). “To achieve smooth transition, cargo shipped prior to November 30, 2015 and not accompanied with CoC shall be accorded appropriate treatment entry into Kenya. No cargo shipped after November 30, 2015 shall be allowed entry into Kenya unless accompanied by CoC,” Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Commissioner General John Njiraini and Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) managing director Charles Ongwae said in a joint notice to importers. The PVoC is a conformity assessment programme that is administered by Kebs on behalf of the government and carried out by the appointed verification partners on regulated goods in the country of supply. “No cargo shall be allowed entry into Kenya without the fulfilment of CoC requirements. Presentation of certificates of conformity shall be a mandatory requirement to facilitate clearance by both KRA and Kebs,” the two officials further said. Only a handful of goods will be exempt from this requirement. These are raw materials for processing into finished products, spare parts for own use by manufacturers...

Implementing the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) could increase the value of global exports by up to $1 trillion a year, according to a study. The report is the first detailed study by the WTO into the potential effects of the TFA, which aims to standardise, streamline and speed up customs processes around the world. The WTO said “fuller, faster” implementation of the agreement would increase the value generated and the TFA could result in a 0.5 per cent boost to global annual GDP. The report said developing countries would benefit most from the TFA and they are expected to enter 30 per cent more foreign markets as a result of the agreement, with a 20 per cent increase in the number of new products exported. The WTO said the agreement would help firms in developing countries enter supply chains because “timeliness and predictability in the delivery of intermediate goods are essential to the successful management of global value chains”. The report said the TFA would reduce trade costs among members by an average of 14.5 per cent and cut the risk of corruption. “There is evidence to show that the likelihood to engage in fraudulent practices at the border is higher the longer the time needed to clear goods,” said the report.“By simplifying trade procedures and reducing the time to move goods across borders, the TFA will increase the volume of goods flowing through customs, reduce the scope for corruption and increase the amount of revenues...

Importing goods to East Africa via Kenya’s Mombasa port is now twice as  cheap as using the alternative Dar es Salaam port in Tanzania, according to report by the Shipping Council of Eastern Africa. The 2015 East Africa Logistics Performance Survey released last week showed that the cost of transporting a ton of goods through the Northern Corridor, that runs from Mombasa to Kampala in Kenya, has reduced to $2,500 from $3,400 over the last five years. The cost of using the Central Corridor from Dar es Salaam to Kampala nearly doubled over the same period, to $4,500 in 2015 from $2,507 in 2011. This makes the Central Corridor twice expensive compared to the Northern one. Gilbert Lagat, chief executive at Kenya Shippers Council, told a press briefing during the launch of the report in Nairobi that efforts by regional president, Kenya’s Uhuru Keyatta, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, to make the port of Mombasa and the Northern Corridor more efficient had helped reduce the cost. ”...with President Uhuru Kenyatta and his counterparts Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda focused on improving business at the port of Mombasa and the Northern Corridor, the cost of cargo clearance dropped,” Business Daily quotes Lagat saying. Under the flagship projects under the Northern Corridor Integration Projects (NCIP), the three regional presidents have committed to speed up construction and upgrading of the infrastructure connected the their countries, including the Standard gauge railway and the Mombasa port. Cargo clearance time...

It was a suited affair, Wednesday night at the Kigali Serena hotel as a twenty-person delegation from Kenya Ports Authorities (KPA) took Rwandan traders on yet another dinner date, for the second time this year after the first one in March. As the case normally is on most dates, the courting party arrived earlier than the courted and readied the venue for a night of business talk and fun, in the end, it was a full house, the numbers more than those earlier anticipated; fortunately. The first meeting in March was an introductory affair of sorts where KPA Managing Director Gichiri Ndua, told his audience that day that ‘he was bringing the port of Mombasa services closer to Kigali’ in form of a country liaison office located in the city centre. On Wednesday, the presentations were kept precise and to the point, as if careful not to bore the guests with too much business talk after a busy working day; the band music was there to provide a welcome distraction in between speeches. The Kenyans spoke and their Rwandan counterparts listened and after all had been said and heard, Rwandan traders were given the stage to ask questions and point out issues they wanted fixed to ease business on the Northern Corridor. Less than a month ago, a delegation from the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam was here, for the first time and met Rwandan traders over a business lunch in Kigali; they pledged to open their own country office here,...

The Northern Corridor has registered a general decline in transport costs while the Central Corridor shows a steady but marginal increase in the past five years. According to the 2015 East Africa Logistics Performance Survey, the cost of transport from the port of Dar es Salaam to the landlocked countries of East Africa is twice higher than that from the port of Mombasa to the neighbouring EAC countries. “The average transport cost from Mombasa to Kampala came down from $3,400 in 2011 to $2,500 in 2015, while the rates from Dar-es-Salaam to Kampala have increased from $2,507 in 2011 to $4,500 in 2015,” says the report. Gilbert Langat, chief executive officer at the Kenya Shippers Council, noted that the 2008 post-election violence in Kenya saw many shippers and cargo traders shift to the port of Dar es Salaam due to the losses they incurred during this period. This lasted till 2012, when Kenya was going through election campaigns again. “Many shippers and cargo traders were not sure of the outcome of the Kenyan elections during 2012 period and preferred to ship their goods through the Dar port. So the Dar port saw an increase in cargo clearance, and transport on the Central Corridor also improved,” said Mr Langat. “But after the 2013 elections, with President Uhuru Kenyatta and his counterparts Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda focused on improving business at the port of Mombasa and the Northern Corridor, the cost of cargo clearance dropped.” The focus...