Considerable economic success in Rwanda and the larger bloc of the East African Community (EAC) is attractive for American investors and the US government is focused on supporting stronger partnerships between US investors and members of the private sector in Rwanda and the rest of the EAC. The message was delivered in Kigali, yesterday, by US Secretary for Commerce Penny Pritzker during a business roundtable at Village Urugwiro that brought together business leaders from the US business and East Africa. Pritzker, who led a delegation of 13 members of the US President's Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa and African CEOs, spoke highly of the economic achievements in Rwanda and EAC."Rwanda and the East African Community have a lot to offer US investors. East Africa is the most integrated and fastest-growing regional economic community in Africa," she said. She hailed Rwanda's efforts and success in facilitating businesses as well as the country's stable economic growth since 2000 - at an average of 8 per cent - and called for stronger ties between the country's traders and those from the US. "We are focused on steps the US government can take to support the establishment of stronger and lasting commercial partnerships between the US and the African private sectors, especially regions and countries where there have been considerable economic success and Rwanda is a prime example of this. From a commercial perspective, Rwanda's climb in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business is notable," she said. Under its Doing Business...

East African Community (EAC) member States will benefit from a Sh41 billion funding to fast-track three key areas critical to regional integration. The inter-governmental agreement concluded in Arusha between the German government and the regional bloc will support economic integration, regional health and water resource management over the next three years. The funding is as a result of realization that integration is still faced with key hurdles that need to be overcome despite available opportunities. Key challenges include inadequate and poor regional infrastructure network, water scarcity and difficulty in managing shared water resources, weak institutions and human capacity, insecurity and political instability. Other challenges are diversity across the economies and divergent country attitudes towards regional integration. Part of the funds (10 million euros) will be invested in the establishment of a regional network of reference laboratories for communicable diseases. Another 10 million euros will be used for integrated water resource management of Lake Victoria, aimed at improving water provision and management of water resources. Source: Media Max

The Government has stepped up efforts to link local traders to regional markets to boost exports. Amb. Valentine Rugwabiza, the minister for East African Community affairs, said government seeks to facilitate traders to get a fair market share of the growing trade in the region. This, according to the minister, would be achieved through facilitating easy access of traders to the sea ports and ensuring more traders are linked to the regional markets to allow them to optimise on the increasing regional trade and contribute to a more sustained economic growth. "Reducing the time and costs to exporters and importers is not only of paramount importance to Rwanda's increased regional integration and trade facilitation, but also critical for a more sustained economic growth," Rugwabiza said. The minister was speaking during the fifth breakfast meeting between the Ministry of East African Community Affairs and the private sector in Kigali yesterday. Currently, government is working with its partners in the region to further reduce the cost of doing business and ensure all non-tariff barriers (NTBs) are eliminated. This is necessary to balance the country's external trade books. For example, Rwanda recorded a 0.3 per cent trade deficit over the third quarter of last year, spending $481.1 million (about Rwf370 billion) on imports compared to $96.14 million (about Rwf74 billion) earned from exports. Overall, total exports decreased by 26.07 per cent during the period. In this regard, linking more traders to regional markets makes sense as it would help boost the country's exports...

LAST June, 26 African countries signed the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) agreement that, when implemented, will constitute about half of Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP), half its population and cover a combined land mass of 17-million square kilometres — about the size of Russia. The countries, with a combined GDP of about $1.3-trillion and a population of 565-million, will merge into a common market and eliminate tariff lines and trade barriers. They will benefit from liberalised intraregional trade, which is expected to boost the flow of goods and services. Today, however, only three of Africa’s eight regional economic communities are participating in the TFTA. Nonparticipating economic blocs include the Arab Maghreb Union, the Economic Community of West African States, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the Economic Community of Central African States and the Community of Sahel-Saharan States. The Abuja Treaty of 1995, signed by 51 African countries, mandates all regional economic communities to join the group by 2017 in anticipation of an African Economic Community by 2028. "The conditions (to form the TFTA) have never been better," says Sindiso Ndema Ngwenya, the secretary-general of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa). "We have improved governance, and the very fact that we withstood the global financial crisis of 2008 attests to sound macroeconomic policies. This is what is giving us resilience." The benefits of the free trade area are numerous. "It has the potential to increase economies of scale through integration, will increase demand for the region’s goods...

East African single tourist visa has been hailed as the most progressive visa regulation in Africa, But Uganda’s tourist minister has raised a red flag over what she terms as other countries signed to the treaty not honoring the agreement fully. According to The Observer, Maria Mutagamba said the number of tourists visiting the landlocked country have dropped since the single East African tourist visa system was introduced because Kenya and Rwanda are still using their local tourist visa. “We embraced it wholeheartedly, but our brothers and sisters in the two countries while they introduced the East African visa, they also maintained their local tourist visa,” Matagamba said, adding that Uganda was planning to reintroduce its local tourist visa too. Under the tripartite agreement know as “Coalition of Willing”, the three countries were supposed to stop issuing local tourists visas and adopt the $100 multi-entry visa that would allow tourists to access the three East African countries within 90 days using one visa. Tanzania and Burundi, which are also member of the East African Community did not join the other three. “The tourism sector is agitated. They say; ‘we must have our own tourism visa as Uganda’ so that we can also get our tourists coming here directly until we all agree that we are going to have one (tourist visa),” Matagamba said. There were worries that Uganda would not benefit from the Schengen visa-like agreement since Kenya and Rwanda normally attract more tourists. “For us (Uganda) to benefit from...

The Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS), a public institution in charge of undertaking measures for quality controls on imports and promoting standardization in industry and commerce, has recently started a campaign to dismiss all sub-standard products that are outstanding in the local market. The announcement was done by TBS Director General Joseph Masikitiko, whom explained that the government is closely working with local authorities to seize all products that don’t meet the country’s standards. Used rubber tires are among the main sub-standard products imported by Tanzania and it is proved that they are one of the main factors of motor accidents in the country, reason why the TBS will specially focus on foreign shipments to analyse them before they enter the market, Mr. Masikitiko added. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tanzania has become one of the main importers of used rubber tires in Africa ranking in the 11th position totaling USD 4.69 million in 2013 up from USD 0.91 million in 2008. In addition, petroleum products will be also strongly surveilled since in December, 2015, the TBS rejected 38,000 metric tonnes of gasoline sub-standard product, reason why the shipment was sent back to United Arab Emirates (UAE) from Dar es Salaam port due to unacceptable elements found in the analysis, stressed Mr. Masikitiko. Petroleum Products constitute the main group of imports to Tanzania accounting for 36.15% of the country’s total imports and 93.4% of mineral imports in 2013 according to the MIT. Companies importing petroleum products that...

In the current global world, countries future and fate is intermingled. Positive developments in one country spill over to other parts. Similarly, negative phenomena that occurs by natural event or by human activity in a given country, could have repercussion on other parts of the world. Today global warming and climate change, poverty eradication and trade relation has brought countries together for good outcome. On the other hand, terrorism, extremism and security threats alert countries to spend their meagre resources for the well-being of their citizens, that can be allocated for development. However, we can safely argue that for most developing countries, eradication of ignorance, poverty, diseases, expansion of infrastructure, health and social service, enhancing food production and fighting hanger are common priority areas. In order to achieve development, first, countries should sort out what kind of resources they have at hand, how they could tap natural resources and mobilize domestic and international finance and technology. They as well could ultimately identify the type of energy their development scheme could be supported with. Here energy is both a means and an end for their development. Because, all economic sectors such as agriculture, industry and service essentially need energy. Without utilizing it, growth is unthinkable. On the other hand, energy makes a country economic powerful. By supplying energy, besides gaining hard currency, some countries, could be politically influential. Over the past decade, energy was proved to be a source of conflict at the international level. In contrary, countries suffering from energy...

“We are excited by this opportunity to use our expertise to build best-in-class infrastructure to ensure the continued development and growth for Kigali and the wider economy” Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, chairman of DP World said. The total cost of the project is anticipated to be around $35 million (Sh3.6 billion), with further development to be phased in line with demand growth. DP World, the Dubai-owned port operator, recently took up concession deals in eastern and southern Africa. DP World has a concession to run Djibouti’s Doraleh container terminal which is Africa’s largest. The firm also has a similar deal at the port of Maputo in Mozambique which serves as the main shipping terminus for land-locked regions of southern Africa such as Gauteng Province, Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi. The company is also bidding for the concession deal for the second container terminal at the Mombasa port. “We are definitely interested in Lamu because of the prime location. If an opportunity comes to bid for the concession of the Lamu port we shall put in a request. “Meanwhile we are hoping all goes well with our concession bid for the second container terminal in Mombasa,” Sultan Ahmed further told Shipping & Logistics in October at the firm’s head office in Dubai. Maritime trade in eastern and southern Africa has particularly registered good growth, buoyed by booming construction sectors and discoveries of large mineral and gas deposits. The growth in global sea trade has partly been fuelled by a recent drop...

Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda have struck a deal to jointly clear cargo at the Kilindini port and monitor consignments on transit on a single electronic platform. Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) commissioner-general John Njiraini said the regional cargo tracking system would enable the three countries to seamlessly monitor cargo from Mombasa to Kigali and eventually Juba, curbing revenue leaks. “This approach will remove the opportunities presently exploited by crooks at the changeover of seals at border points by requiring affixation of only one seal to be disarmed on arrival at destination,” he said. Mr Njiraini said the countries at meeting in Mombasa on January 16 agreed to establish joint enforcement teams to police transit cargo operations, besides other actions including the centralisation of transit cargo clearance at Kilindini port. The tracking system comprises satellites, a central monitoring centre and special electronic seals fitted on cargo containers and trucks, which give the precise location of goods in real time. The system triggers an alarm whenever there is diversion from the designated route, an unusually long stopover or when someone attempts to open a container. Besides curbing theft of cargo, the system also helps to seal loopholes that cause the country losses in revenue through suspected under-declaration of the value of exports or theft of cargo. “The new system’s key strength is that unlike presently, the three Northern Corridor countries, shall use one system and one platform, with seamless visibility from Mombasa to Kigali and eventually Juba,” Mr Njiraini said. The KRA in...

Nairobi 21st January, 2016…East Africa private sector body, East Africa Tourism Platform (EATP) has emerged First runner up of the UNWTO Award for Innovation in Public Policy and Governance for its multi-destination knowledge management tool at the 12th UNWTO Awards EATP was among a total of 17 projects from Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe that were selected from a total of 109 candidacies, as finalist of the 12th UNWTO Awards on Excellence and Innovation in Tourism. Winners in the four categories of Public Policy and governance, Research and Technology Enterprises and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) were announced Wednesday night at the UNWTO Awards Ceremony and gala dinner at Fitur in Madrid, Spain. [caption id="attachment_11574" align="alignleft" width="600"] The East Africa Tourism Platform Executive Director Ms. Carmen Nibigira during the award UNWTO Awards Ceremony and gala dinner at Fitur in Madrid, Spain on 20th January 2016[/caption] The Award recognizes initiatives that are highly innovative and managed by a public or public-private institution that reflects tangible and sustainable improvements in policy, processes, and governance. Speaking after receiving the award on behalf of the 5 countries, EATP Regional Co-ordinator Ms Carmen Nibigira says the Multi-destination Knowledge management tool developed by EATP was nominated and awarded for its works towards an inclusive model of tourism governance which involves diverse tourism stakeholders. “Through this tool, regional tourism stakeholders have started trading each other’s products, packaging tourism products without borders, bench-marking amongst themselves and learning from each other. We are one people, but with a rich cultural...