KIGALI, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- African government and business leaders have called for increased private investments in Africa in order to boost economic growth on the continent. They made the call on Monday at the opening of Global African Investment Summit (TGIAS) in Rwanda's capital Kigali. Rwanda hosts the high-level investment forum from Sept. 5 to 6, aimed at delivering international trade and investment to Africa's most dynamic region. "Africa is ripe for investments in several sectors of the economy. There are lots of untapped business prospects for both local and foreign investors. Increased private investments will explore these investment opportunities and help accelerate growth," said Uganda President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. He added that Africa has realized the importance of private capital in expanding and growing the mining sector on the continent, given its mineral endowment. "Private investments bring the required capital and essential skills that sustain the growth of economic sectors. Without the mobilization of private capital specifically to fund the mining and infrastructure sectors on the continent, such economic development would not have been possible, at least at the rate at which it occurred," Museveni said. The summit organized by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the government of Rwanda has attracted about 1,000 delegates, including some African heads of state and government, ministers and private sector businesses leaders. The two-day meeting is held under the theme "Transforming African Economies for Global Competitiveness" and will cover sectors including infrastructure, power, agribusiness, fast-moving consumer goods...

By Florence Mugarula Transit Trade stakeholders from Rwanda have expressed satisfaction on the business grounds between Tanzania and Rwanda promising to continue using Dar es Salaam port for shipping in their cargo. A statement released by Central Corridor Transit Transport Facilitation Agency (CCTTFA) said the Rwandan delegation that visited the country last month have promised to boost businesses with their Tanzania counterparts after being satisfied with the environment of doing business in the country. Rwanda is the second biggest user of the Dar es Salaam port among members of the central corridor. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) tops the list of Dar es Salaam port users. According to the records, at least 70 percent of Rwanda cargo pass through Dar es Salaam port. In 2015 Rwanda imported about 819,935 tons of goods through the Dar es Salaam Port. The delegation was represented by officials from the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ministry of East African Community, Association of Clearing & Forwarding Agents and Rwanda Shippers Council, Rwanda Revenue Authority and Rwanda High Commission to Tanzania. The delegation visited key business areas such as Maersk, CMA and PIL (shipping lines), Tanzania Food and Drug Authority (TFDA), Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) and Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA). Among important issues discussed during the two-day visit included ironing out of issues such as high container deposits required by shipping lines, Non recognition of Rwanda Standards Board (RSB) standard marks by TFDA, full implementation of the simplified trade regime and opening of Rusumo...

Kenya is set to gazette seed harmonization regulations before the end of the year to allow and ensure smooth flow of seed from one country to another. Speaking on behalf of the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Policy Research and Regulations Director, Ann Onyango, says the harmonization will allow farmers to access improved seed variety and increase food production and security Kenya is among the 19 Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) member states with more than 80 registered seed companies producing more than 44,000 tones yearly and it was gazetted by COMESA in 2014. The Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA) CEO, Argent Chuula, says harmonizing seed trade rules and regulations within the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) regions will eliminates barriers to seed trade in the region. It is expected that if the COMESA member state agree to harmonize seed trade rules and regulations, it will result in removing trade barriers to free-flow of seed among member states. Over 500 million people living in COMESA member states depend on crops among them beans, maize, rice, groundnuts cotton, wheat, cassava, potatoes, sunflower, sorghum, soya beans and millet. Speaking during the opening of the second COM-SHIP Implementation Progress Review Meeting of COMESA Seed Harmonization Programme, Chuula said the objectives of the harmonization include streamlining the roles and responsibilities of national seed authorities and seed certification standards for field inspection and laboratory services. “We want to ensure free movement...

Uganda has reversed its decision to delay the signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union. Trade minister Amelia Kyambadde said the government has since made up its mind and was ready to sign the deal irrespective of whether all the other regional countries are on board or not. On Thursday, Kenya and Rwanda Trade ministers signed the EPA pact in Brussels, Belgium, with the European Union, a deal the East African Community Council of Ministers had recommended earlier this year. Kenya was desperate to have the agreement signed to safeguard unlimited duty free access of its exports to Europe after Tanzania and Uganda said the deal initialled in October 2014 needed to be renegotiated following Britain’s exit from the bloc. Speaking at the sidelines of the 7th Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives sector review annual conference in Kampala on Tuesday, Ms Kyambadde said “The EU is our major trading bloc and we are going ahead to sign the EPAs.” READ: How Museveni put the brakes on EA trade deal with Europe Burundi has also shown strong desire to sign the agreement in its current form, leaving Tanzania in its effort to seek further reassurance regarding the matter. Tanzania’s refusal to sign the EPAs is due to fear of repercussions the deal would have on the growth of the emerging regional industries. Without guarantees against the side effects, Tanzania says it is not prepared to commit itself into economic enslavement. READ: Dar dodges EPA to protect...

By Ivan R. Mugisha The proposed Tripartite Free Trade Area between the East African Community, Comesa and Southern African Development Community could potentially eliminate intra-regional trade bottlenecks and boost exports among member states by at least 30 per cent. According to the EAC Secretariat, trade between the EAC and the Common Market for East and Central Africa in 2014 amounted to $2.7 billion while flows between the EAC and SADC stood at $3 billion. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) projects that the gains could even be bigger if non-tariff barriers between the three sub-Saharan Africa blocs are eliminated when the tripartite arrangement comes into force. The Tripartite Free Trade Area was proposed in Kampala in October 2008, during a heads of state summit. The deal involves 26 countries with a total GDP of $1.2 trillion and a population of over 638 million people. "Our estimates suggest that the TFTA could increase intra-regional trade by as much as 30 per cent. The manufacturing sector will benefit most, giving the needed boost to industrialisation," said Andrew Mold, officer in charge of the sub-regional office for Eastern Africa at Uneca in Kigali. In two weeks, African heads of state and government are scheduled to arrive in Kigali for the Global African Investment Summit, where the progress of the TFTA will be discussed. The deal is expected to come into force after being ratified by at least two-thirds of the 26 member states. But last month, member states differed on the...

Kenya stands to benefit from plans by Tanzania's parliament to terminate a bilateral Single Customs Territor deal with DR Congo. The Tanzania Parliamentary Standing Committee on infrastructure development advised the government to revisit the introduction of SCT on goods transported to DR Congo. According to the committee, the SCT which started last year has reduced cargo through the Dar es Salaam port. Under the arrangement the two countries adopted a destination model of clearance of goods where assessment and revenue collection is done at the first point of entry. The system has caused importers to abandon the Dar es Salaam port and opt for ports of neighbouring countries, Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (Tazara) committee deputy chairman Selemani Kakoso told the parliamentary committee last Monday. Tazara targeted to transport 200,000 tonnes of cargo in 2015/16 but managed only 128,105 tonnes, it said. KPA principal communication officer Hajj Masemo said Kenya is way ahead of the port of Dar es Salaam on effectiveness which has attracted regional players. “We are doing a lot of efficiency compared to Tanzania,” Hajj told the Star. In April, the Tanzania business community reported rising use of the Port of Mombasa, citing bureaucracies at Dar-es-Salaam port. The Kenya International Freight and Warehousing Association confirmed increased clearing of cargo destined for Tanzania. “The new systems in place have made importing through Mombasa faster and better,” Kifwa Mombasa region chairman Eric Gitonga said. The port of Mombasa is also riding on low transport costs along the Northern Corridor. The East...

SOUTH Sudan, which was accepted to become the sixth member of the East African Community (EAC), last April, will today submit ‘instruments for ratification,’ at the EAC Headquarters. According to an official in the Public Relations Office at the EAC Secretariat, Mr Florian Mutabazi, the community’s Secretary General, Ambassador Liberat Mfumukeko, is scheduled to preside over the occasion of ‘Depositing of Instrument of Ratification on the accession to the treaty for the establishment of the EAC by the Republic of South Sudan.’ Essentially this means that the South Sudan president’s envoy would submit official documents that the government of the world’s newest country had signed to indicate Juba’s readiness to comply to the East African Community’s laws, regulations and ultimatums. Last April, President John Magufuli, in his capacity as the Chairperson of the East African Community’s Heads of State Summit led the delegation from South Sudan in signing the initial protocol allowing Juba to join the regional bloc. A month earlier, during their 17th Ordinary Summit held on 2nd March, 2016 here in Arusha, the EAC Heads of State received the report of the Council of Ministers on the negotiations for the admission of the Republic of South Sudan into the Community and decided to admit the Republic of South Sudan as a new member. The Summit then designated the Chairperson, President John Magufuli, to sign the Treaty of Accession with the Republic of South Sudan, which becomes the sixth member of the regional bloc, which was revived in 1999...

ARUSHA, TANZANIA – Tanzania and Ethiopia governments are in final arrangements to sign a 400-megawatt power purchase agreement on the sidelines of the next Eastern African Power Pool (EAPP) talks in Tanzania.  “The project aims at enabling East African Community (EAC) member states to identify sources of cheap electricity for increased power interchanges. Ethiopia has made progress in hydropower generation and is also endowed with abundant renewable energy resources. “These include untapped geothermal, solar and wind energy. At the moment Ethiopia is generating 6,000 megawatts, which can be accessible to neighbouring states,” Felchesmi Mramba, the Managing Director of the Tanzanian power utility company (TANESCO) said last week. Mramba, said the official signing of the power pact with Ethiopia would be preceded by the EAPP meeting in Arusha bringing together representatives, including lawyers, from all the member states. Countries forming the Eastern Africa Power Pool include Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Ethiopia, Egypt, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eritrea and Tanzania. Mramba said installation of power generation and transmission facilities would not only foster economic integration but also cater for the region’s power needs for the next 25 years. Mramba said, “Interconnection of the power systems entails synchronisation of electricity supply services such that an area of power, abundance would offset shortages in another country, and vice-versa. Studies in 2009 established the technical and economic viability of the project to meet population growth demand” Ethiopia, through the Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) authorities, has been exporting electricity to neighbouring countries like...

Last week I attended and made a presentation at a roundtable on manufacturing in Kenya hosted by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). The roundtable was under ODI’s Supporting Economic Transformation Programme (SET), which is supported by DFID. As part of the roundtable I developed a paper on manufacturing in Kenya and thought it would be useful to share some insights I unearthed during my research on manufacturing in East Africa. At the moment, the manufacturing sector in Kenya is the largest in the east African region. However, in terms of growth other countries in East Africa are growing faster. Data from ODI indicate that the growth of the sector in Kenya is far slower than Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. If this trend continues, other countries will begin to dominate manufacturing in the region. Further, governments in East Africa seem to be putting in more effort to build manufacturing through the creation of industrial parks in countries such as Ethiopia and, making land available for manufacturing particularly for labour intensive manufacturing. Uganda and Tanzania are also determinedly positioning themselves as investment destinations for manufacturing in Africa. This impetus needs to be more strongly echoed in Kenya from the highest levels of county and national government. Furthermore, while Kenya remains an attractive investment destination for manufacturing, other countries in the region are aggressively courting such investment. There is a growing sense that the bureaucracy and corruption in Kenya as well as difficulty in getting the right information on requirements linked to...

By James Karuhanga The signing of the EAC-EU EPA deal in Brussels, Belgium, by trade ministers for Rwanda and Kenya is a step in the right direction, business leaders and officials have said. Rwanda's Trade and Industry minister Francois Kanimba and Kenya's trade cabinet secretary Adan Mohamed, put pen to paper pursuant to the EAC Council decision earlier in the year for the EAC to sign the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union. "This is a step in the right direction. As EAC gears up for the Summit of Heads of State next week, EABC calls on the three other Partner States to also reconsider and agree to sign EAC-EU Economic Partnership agreement," East African Business Council (EABC) chief executive Lilian Awinja told The New Times. An extraordinary summit of the EAC Heads of State is slated for Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, next week, according to Richard Owora Othieno, the EAC head of corporate communications and public affairs. Earlier this week, Othieno said key issues to be discussed include the EAC-EU EPA deal. Awinja said the deal is part of the agenda for the forthcoming summit. "As the EAC Council of Ministers are preparing their report, let them consult widely, consider private sector positions and if there are contentious issues let them be tabled for the Council to discuss them," she said. The Council of Ministers is the central decision-making organ of the EAC. The move by Rwanda and Kenya is momentous as, previously, negotiation for the trade deal which...