In a Memorandum of Understanding, UNCTAD and TradeMark Africa (TMA) have agreed to strengthen the scope and impact of their activities in East Africa by joining forces on a number of issues. Joakim Reiter, Deputy Secretary-General of UNCTAD and Frank Matsaert, Chief Executive Officer of TradeMark Africa signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 1 July 2015. "With this MoU our two organizations aim at further strengthening collaboration to efficiently deliver targeted assistance to countries and institutions in the region" Joakim Reiter. "We are delighted to enter into a MoU with UNCTAD which provides a platform for cooperation between our two organizations. This will help us work together with our partners in the East African Community in a more coordinated way, implementing issues such as Trade Facilitation and policies on Women in Trade" Frank Matsaert TradeMark Africa (TMA) is a not for profit organization which promotes regional trade and economic integration in East Africa. Collaboration between the two organizations dates back to 2012. This new MoU strengthens the collaboration and lays out a framework for future work in an area of mutual concern: inclusive and sustainable growth and development through economic integration. Specific areas of collaboration: Trade and Gender. Trade Facilitation, including Customs automation and trade portals. Sustainable transport (road, rail and ports) and finance. Joint work foreseen under this MoU: Joint policy-oriented research activities. Joint policy advice at the country-level. Joint in-country projects. By joining forces with TMA, UNCTAD will benefit from TMA's in-depth knowledge of the region and well...

The Rwanda and Kenya business forum is expected to be launched today, 11th July 2015 by President Paul Kagame at a function due to attract over 200 top executives from the private sectors of the two countries. It is a significant development and Amb. Valentine Rugwabiza, the minister for East African Community affairs, believes it’s an opportunity for members of the private sector to explore business opportunities between two countries that enjoy warm diplomatic ties. There will be over 200 participants in the large Serena Hotel conference hall, including a delegation of 34 business executives that travelled from Nairobi, led by Kiprono Kittony, the chairperson of the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI). Kittony’s delegation will join over 150 of their counterparts from the Private Sector Federation, whose membership comprises not only Rwandans but also Kenyans already operating in the country. Today’s event is a follow-up of an earlier breakfast session the President had with members of KNCCI in Nairobi in February. Kenya is East Africa’s largest economy and the leading source of foreign direct investment to Rwanda with an estimated over $440 million in registered businesses in the past decade. The theme, “Expanding business opportunities beyond borders,” is important, according to Amb. Rugwabiza, who said the forum is an offshoot of the ongoing regional integration efforts aimed at improving inter-connectivity among the East African partner states for easier trade. Both Rwanda and Kenya are part of the Northern Corridor Integration initiative that includes Uganda and South Sudan....

Member states of the East African Community (EAC) appear to be racing against time to meet a self-prescribed deadline of December 2015 by which they pledged to have fully implemented the Common Market Protocol, which came into force on July 1, 2010. The protocol, which was ratified by all five partner states of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, provides for four freedoms within the region; free movement of goods; labour; services; and capital. While the partners have done well with the other freedoms, there are sticky issues regarding certain provisions of the protocol that have made it hard to implement commitments to free movement of services and their providers; these require amendments. With these gaps still in the protocol, it’s unlikely that member states will meet their December deadline with just five months remaining. The 29th meeting of the Council of Ministers, held in September 2014 in Arusha, Tanzania, directed the EAC Secretariat to engage partner states in consultative dialogues involving various stakeholders to propose the specific amendments required to straighten the protocol. Rwanda held its consultative meeting organised by the Ministry of East African Affairs (MINIEAC) during which they engaged members of the private sector who submitted their views on provisions of the protocol that they want amended or clarified. The Minister for East African Affairs, Amb. Valentine Rugwabiza, told participants in the workshop that Rwanda was committed to work with its counterparts to seek practical solutions to enable easier cross border trade in services and to deepen...

The Private Sector Federation (PSF) through its Tourism Chamber has secured US$300,000 (Rwf180.8m) grant from Trademark East Africa to help design an integrated approach that will patch-up and consolidate gains from the tourism sector. The new approach is spearheaded by the Quality Standards Task Force, which comprises of Tourism Chamber, Rwanda Development Board, The presidential task force on Tourism and other stakeholders Particularly, the three year project targets to bridge gaps in service delivery within the sector and help harness the recent hotel and restaurants rating that aims improving service delivery in the hospitality industry, which is a key driver of the tourism cluster. The Chairman of the Tourism Chamber, Edwin Sabuhoro, told Business Times in an interview on Tuesday that there is a need for a holistic approach to address the current challenges such as poor customer care within the sector to increase its competitiveness in the region. “What we want to look at is a problem solving- solution, finding approach without necessarily seeing one in isolation of the other,” he said, noting that such approach will help remove the prevailing poor customer care. Although the tourism sector is Rwanda’s top foreign exchange revenue earner, industry players are struggling to improve service delivery after it was ranked last in the region. Sabuhoro said that there is need deal with this problem by using the bottom-up approach through identifying gaps at micro level up to the business entity level. Claudine Kayitesi, a waitress said told Business Times that: “It is...

The new Mirama Hills one-stop border post between Rwanda and Uganda, one of now 13 in the East African region, was during the week handed over to the border, security, and customs agencies from the 2 countries now manning the new facility. Funded by Trade Mark East Africa is it one of the measures taken to improve the flow of goods when trading across the region but also encourages additional travel activities by cutting down on red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy when crossing the border. Citizens of Uganda and Rwanda can travel from one country to the other using ID cards or in the Ugandan case even voter’s cards after passport requirements were abandoned when the Northern Corridor Integration Projects countries fast-tracked the movement of people and goods, something the East African Community at large had for long failed to do. Mirama Hills is the nearest border crossing between the two countries for travelers coming from Uganda. The area is expected to also see the new Standard Gauge Railway line from the border of Uganda with Kenya, via Kampala and on to Kigali, built here and due to the terrain not likely go on to Kabale from where the Gatuna border is nearest. Road developments on both sides of the border linking Uganda and Rwanda have also taken place, making travel by road easier; many people use buses between the two countries. The cost of the new border post was given as just under US$8 million and was constructed by...

A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S freight volumes will probably increase by as much as 10 percent in the East African region this year, helped by accelerating economic growth and improved efficiency at major ports. “In East Africa, we are seeing increased political stability, a growing middle class, infrastructure development and oil resources that will drive growth,” Steve Felder, the Danish shipping company’s managing director for the region, said by phone from Johannesburg on Monday. Governments in Kenya and Tanzania have been increasing investment in harbors as cargo volumes grow. Kenya’s Mombasa port, the biggest in the region, competes with Dar es Salaam in neighboring Tanzania. Kenya’s economy is expected to grow by 6.9 percent this year and Tanzania’s 7.2 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund, compared with a sub-Saharan Africa average of 4.5 percent. “We are currently seeing 24 berth moves per hour at the Mombasa container terminal, which has potential to double with on-going investment in hardware, deployment of better I.T. solutions and training,” Felder said. “Productivity in the private terminal at Dar es Salaam has greatly improved over the past year to 33 berth moves per hour.” Maersk, based in Copenhagen, shipped 380,000 20-foot equivalent units in the region last year, about 35 percent of the total market, according to Felder. The company operates the world’s largest shipping container line, and employs almost 10,000 people in more than 40 African nations. Productivity Issues About 65 percent of Maersk freight in East Africa goes through Mombasa, while Dar es Salaam...

Ntungamo — Construction of Mirama Hills One Stop Border Post (OSBP) has been completed. The border post in Ntugamo District was handed over to Uganda Revenue Authority by Dott Services last week after completion. It includes key sections such as customs and immigration, a goods inspection hall, a clearing agency block and a police post, among others. At the handover, Mr Alex B. Okello, the Works ministry permanent secretary, cautioned against vandalising the post something which he said had become a serious challenge for government. The post was constructed at a cost a $7.8m with $1.2m going into interior design and $0.6m going into furnishing. The projected was funded by Trade Mark East Africa with a view of facilitating trade between Uganda and Rwanda. Mirama Hills Border Post is one of 13 posts funded by Trade Mark East Africa with a view of increasing trade in the region. Four of the 13 are in Uganda, including Mirama Hills, Malaba, Busia and Mutukula. Source: All Africa

Twenty-six African nations have created a free trade zone that spans the eastern half of the continent from Egypt to South Africa in an effort to increase the flow of goods through reduced tariffs and improved infrastructure. According to observers, the new trade bloc is expected to act as a common market with a combined gross domestic product of $1.2 trillion with the potential to generate a 25 percent increase in each individual member country’s trade profile over the coming decade. The agreement includes Egypt and South Africa, among Africa’s wealthiest countries, and some of its poorest including Mozambique and Burundi. The continent’s most powerful economy, Nigeria, located on the continent’s west coast, is not included in the new FTZ. The new bloc replaces the Tripartite Free Trade Area, comprised of the East African Community, the Southern African Development Community and the overlapping Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. According to a 2013 United Nations report, a lack of regional integration caused Africa to lag behind Asia and Europe in economic growth. If African governments want to achieve their objective of boosting intra-African trade, the report said, “they have to create more space for the private sector to play an active role in the integration process.” Source: Global Trade

The mapping of numerous documentary requirements in the journey of flowers and avocados from growers in East Africa to retailers in the Netherlands was the first step of a new partnership between Maersk Line and TradeMark Africa, a not-for-profit organisation working to accelerate poverty reduction in the region through trade growth. The aim of the partnership is to identify ways to reduce trade barriers for Small and Medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and perishable products out of East Africa, and to support companies in East Africa to gain easier entry to the world market. The group explained, "More than 30 individuals or institutions are involved in handling documentation and there are about 200 different communication interactions in the process, with public officials and between different companies (…) Consequently, the time spent waiting on paper stamps and email replies costs just as much as the actual shipment, which simply is not a feasible or productive way to do business. For producers in Kenya all of the paperwork and its processes increase their total cost and limit their market access significantly." Source: Brussels Office Weblog

On 10 June 2015 the TFTA was signed in Cairo, uniting three of Africa’s principal trading blocs: the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). The TFTA consists of a US$1.2 trillion free trade area, incorporating 26 African nations,[1] a population of 632 million, and an area of 17.3 million square kilometres, stretching from Cape Town to Cairo. During recent years there has been much talk of the potential benefits of creating an integrated African commercial bloc; the TFTA may be seen as the first tangible sign of action being taken. Following signature of the TFTA, negotiations to broaden its territorial ambit to West African nations opened on 15 June 2015 at the African Union (AU) summit in Johannesburg. According to the AU, the ultimate aim is to establish an intra-continental market benefiting from a youthful, fast-growing population of about 1 billion and a combined GDP of US$3 trillion. Objectives and actions under the TFTA The overall aim of the TFTA is to remove barriers to trade and to ease the movement of people between its signatory nations. According to a statement issued by South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry, the TFTA nations will now work towards agreeing and ratifying tariff rules in line with the agenda agreed at the launch of the trade bloc. The TFTA is founded upon three main pillars: market integration, infrastructure development and industrial development. The first actions to be taken...