Hoteliers are banking on the proposed construction of a Sh5.5 billion cable car facility on the Likoni channel to help turn around tourism in the South Coast. Transport and Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary James Macharia says the Ministry plans to sign a deal with contractors to pave the way for the construction of the facility in October or early November. “We are at an advanced stage of the project and we hope to launch the construction of the cable car facility in the next few months,” Mr Macharia said two weeks ago. The cable car will ease congestion at the Likoni channel, providing an alternative transport to travellers and transporters who currently rely on ferries to cross to the South Coast from Mombasa Island. According to Diani Reef Beach Resort managing director Bobby Kamani, the cable car will open up Kwale County for easy access by tourists. He expects tourists coming from Moi International Airport in Mombasa to take a shorter time to cross the channel to Diani. “Over the years, tourism in Diani has been facing a major transport challenge due to frequent ferry breakdowns on the channel,” he said. “With the cable car, it will be much easier for tourists to travel from Mombasa to Diani for holidays and uplift tourism in Kwale County.” Mr Kamani called on the government to fasttrack the construction of the cable car to ease transport between Mombasa and Diani. “Accessibility is key for tourism as visitors prefer to travel in comfort. Kenya is...

The longstanding trade dispute between Kenya and Tanzania is derailing business between the two neighbours to the detriment of entrepreneurs who depend on it. For a long time, Tanzania has been Kenya’s second largest export market after Uganda, underlining its importance as a trading partner. The dispute has put in jeopardy the production of some goods in Kenya, as businesspeople cannot continue normally until they have found other markets to replace the seemingly unreliable Tanzanian one. The situation is therefore dire for those whose jobs that are dependent on selling goods to Tanzania. In the first five months of this year, Kenya’s exports to Tanzania fell by 34 per cent to stand at Sh8.2 billion compared to a similar period last year. That means more than a third of the value derived from selling products such as palm oil, soap, medical drugs, cooking fat, iron sheets, sugar confectionery and margarine to Tanzania was lost. It is for this reason that cancellation of a meeting intended to iron out the differences between the two countries is unfortunate. There can be no doubt that traders on both sides of the common border need a quick settlement of the impasse in order to resume normal production and keep employees at work. The long-running market access battles with Tanzania have become worse in the past few months after Kenya blocked importation of Tanzanian gas through the Namanga border post over quality concerns. Clearly, both countries have issues with products coming from one another’s territory....

Tourist arrivals are expected to pick up in the second half of the year and cross the 1.5 million mark following the relatively peaceful election during the high season. Tourism secretary Najib Balala on Monday forecast a 20 per cent rise in arrivals this year, with visitors seizing the chance to see the annual wildebeest migration in the Maasai Mara. This means that the government is targeting 1,668,000 arrivals, which is still short of the 1,710,800 tourists who visited Kenya in 2012. “We expect the number of arrivals to grow by 20 per cent by the end of 2017. We are in the high tourism season, when we receive high numbers of international visitors,” said Mr Balala said at a media briefing. Tourists numbers tend to drop in days to the elections, which are often tense following fears of a repeat of the 2008 post-election violence in which 1,200 people were killed. On Monday, many shops opened in Nairobi for the first time in days, with cars and buses on the roads that had been deserted even before the result was announced of the August 8 presidential election. The announcement was greeted by protests in parts of Nairobi and western Kenya. Most hotels at the coast had an occupancy of between 40 per cent and 50 per cent, which is lower than the normal 60 per cent and 70 per cent during the high season that starts in July and ends in October. The number of international visitors rose to...

Tanzanian officials have put off a meeting intended to iron out outstanding trade disputes with Kenya amid concerns Dar es Salaam was maintaining a hardline stance in the spat. Representatives of the two countries, including officials from cross-border trade agencies, were expected to meet from tomorrow in Tanzania, according to an agreement reached on August 3. But Kenya’s principal secretary for trade Chris Kiptoo, who was also scheduled to meet his Tanzania counterpart Adolf Mkenda on Friday, said the meeting was off following a note from Tanzania postponing the meeting. “I have just seen the note asking for a postponement to 9th September. We would review it and communicate the outcome. My technical team was ready including the private sector to begin these negotiations which had started on a positive note,” Mr Kiptoo said. The two trade bosses led a meeting in Namanga where both countries agreed to lift some of the trade restrictions, including the one that barred milk and milk products from Kenya from entering Tanzania and the restrictions on wheat from Tanzania. The agreement resolved to allow some 26 trucks ferrying wheat from Tanzania that were stopped at the border to be allowed entry into Kenya and opened borders for Kenyan milk and milk products some of which had expired over the standoff, leading to unquantified losses. The Namanga agreement failed to reach a deal on a number of issues raised by Kenya, including a higher tax on cigarettes from Kenya which are treated like products coming...

The Mombasa International Agricultural Show will be held from August 30 to September 3. Briefing the media yesterday, event chairperson Anisa Abdalah said preparations had started and that a record 200 exhibitors were expected to grace the event. "The general election has just ended and the focus now is on the show's preparation. We have 18 international exhibitors who have confirmed participation alongside 90 local firms," Ms Abdalah, who was flanked by the branch manager Thedaus Fita, said. Abdalah said exhibitors from upcountry had started pitching tent at the showground in preparation for the event. She said the theme for this year's event is 'Promoting Innovation and Technology in Agriculture and Trade'. Among new exhibitors are the Kwale International Sugar Company (Kiscol), Lamu Port South Sudan, Ethiopia Transport Corridor (Lappset) and Kenya Meat Commission (KMC). Regular exhibitors such as Kenya Railways will be showcasing the newly-introduced Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) train - Madaraka Express. Others are Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), Rural Electrification Authority (REA), Kenya Power, Ministry of Tourism and Base Titanium among others. Thousands of Kenyans from the Coast, upcountry and across the border are expected to attend. Abdalah said since the trade fair will fall during active school calendar, they are banking on increased visits by pupils and students who shall be accorded preference. "We have incorporated various security organs and working closely with the office of Coast Regional Coordinator to ensure we have an incident-free event," she said. Abdalah at the same time said they were reaching...

Kenya's first high-speed expressway connecting the country's two largest cities will take six years to finish, the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) has said. According to the State agency, design and construction of the 473-kilometre Mombasa-Nairobi road is set to begin after last week’s signing of a financing deal with US-based firm Bechtel International Inc. “The project will be supported with financing from Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) in the United States of America. The signing of this agreement will be followed by mobilising of funds from the ECAs for the construction of the expressway,” KeNHA director-general Eng. Peter Mundinia in a statement. Once complete, the Sh230 billion road will be among key highways motorists are expected to pay a toll charge for in order to help recoup construction costs and support maintenance. Expressways, a common infrastructural feature in developed countries, are designed for high speed traffic averaging speeds of about 120 kilometres per hour. The Mombasa-Nairobi highway expansion project is expected to help drastically cut travel time between the two cities from over 6 hours to about four hours. KeNHA says it will have four lanes, with a provision for future increase to six lanes and 19 interchanges with toll stations. The roads agency projects that the expressway will be completed in ten sections over the next six years, with design and construction being undertaken concurrently. The first section from Nairobi to the junction with Namanga road near Kitengela will have an interchange near Konza City and a spur road...

About five customs entries, customs agents’ fees in two countries, two goods- in-transit guarantee bonds and duplicated customs procedures in Kenya and in Uganda. That was the inconvenience that characterised cargo clearance before the implementation of the Single Customs Territory (SCT) in 2013. Steel and Tube Industries’ Aggrey Ijara recollected that back in 2013 he was required to declare each container on  five to seven  customs entries for Mombasa Port,  and two entries for transit and on arrival at Malaba, Eastern Uganda respectively “The many entries were costly and a lot of time was consumed,” Ijara stated. Importers paid US$200m fees for clearing agents in Mombasa, a Sh150, 000 (over US$40) bond fee at Malaba and another Sh500, 000 (US$138) for agents in Kampala. This was in addition to two goods –in- transit bonds to deter dumping of cargo in Kenya or Uganda. The delays and costs were an indictment on revenue authorities, which were failing on the trade facilitation role. To address these challenges and others that impeded regional trade, the Presidents of the East African Community (EAC) agreed to fast track the implementation of SCT to enable importers declare their goods once on arrival at the first port of entries into the region. It is a stage towards full attainment of the Customs Union achievable by the removal of restrictive regulations and/or minimization of internal border controls on goods moving between the partner states. In June 2013, amid a Northern Corridor Presidents’ Summit, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya heads of...

The East African Community Heads of State will meet in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on November 30 for the 14th Ordinary Summit where they are expected to discuss different regional projects. Before the summit, the EAC Heads of State will travel to Tanzania to officially open the new EAC Headquarters in Arusha, commission the Arusha-Namanga-Athi River road both events will take place on  November 28. The EAC Secretariat, the East African Legislative Assembly and the East African Court of Justice have been using rented facilities since the Community was revived in 1999. The three organs of the bloc were housed in the Arusha International Conference Centre. The new building was financed by the German Government and it will be hosting all the three EAC Organs based in Arusha. The Presidents, while in Nairobi, are expected to discuss financing of infrastructure projects, where different regional priority infrastructural projects in energy, and transport sectors will be outlined, according to a statement from the EAC Secretariat. Bill Kayonga, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of East African Community, told The New Times that during the summit, the regional leaders will receive reports by the EAC Council of Ministers highlighting the implementation status of the regional activities over the last one year. “They will receive a report of  the verification team on the application of the Republic of South Sudan ; the EAC secretariat will also present a model of the structure of political federation and action plan on the way forward,” he said....

Kenya plans to build a high speed expressway to boost trade in the Eastern Africa region, officials said on Saturday. Kenya National Highway Authority (KeNHA) Director General Peter Mundinia said that the 473 km expressway will vastly improve the connectivity, efficiency and safety of road transport between Nairobi and the country’s main seaport of Mombasa. “It will serve as a central part of Kenya’s national transport system, helping to promote trade and development in Kenya and further into Uganda, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Mundinia said in a statement released in Nairobi. The road will be completed in ten sections in the next six years. Mundinia said that the project has been structured to achieve early completion under a fast track delivery model with concurrent design and construction. The expressway will be designed for consistent speed of 120 km/h and will reduce the journey between Nairobi and Mombasa from over ten hours to approximately four hours. The road will have four lanes with a provision for future increase to six lanes and 19 interchanges. The director general noted that the expressway will enable Kenya to competitively develop and expand internal and regional trade. “More than 90 percent of goods landing at the Mombasa Port are currently transported by road and this infrastructure project will lay the foundation for long-term commercial and industrial growth,” he added. Source: Coastweek

Regional manufacturers have been urged to embrace electronic trading platforms (e-commerce) to widen their market reach and become more productive and competitive. The experts said embracing such innovations will help reduce the cost of production and enhance the sector profitability. According to Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretary-General, e-commerce is an instrumental and innovative tool for promoting industrialisation and trade across the region. Kituyi was speaking during the ongoing EAC Manufacturing Business Summit and Exhibition in Kigali on Tuesday. The three-day summit brought together more than 500 participants,  including business leaders,  experts and policy-makers, to discuss mechanisms to bolster regional industrialisation. Kituyi said manufacturers should take advantage of the immense opportunities presented by e-commerce platforms to enter new markets, create awareness about their products and drive sales to improve profits. The UNCTAD official observed that the economy today is being driven by digitisation, which makes it imperative for regional manufacturers to embrace e-commerce and tap into the untapped markets. This way the sector will be able to create more jobs and foster inclusive economic growth, he added. Matthias Wachter, the in charge of the Federation of German Industries department of security and raw materials, encouraged industrial players to employ technology and e-commerce in all their processes to increase production and tap new customers. “This way, they will be able to easily penetrate markets and sell products at competitive prices,” he added. Reducing cost of production Meanwhile, the business community has called on regional governments...