BEIJING: An impasse over a global pact to streamline customs procedures poses "the most serious crisis the WTO has faced" and has paralysed all negotiations in the trade body, its chief Roberto Azevedo said on Saturday (Nov 8). A draft of the so-called Trade Facilitation Agreement was hammered out last December during tough negotiations at a World Trade Organization conference in Bali - the WTO's first global accord since its 1995 founding. But the WTO's 160 members failed in July to reach a final agreement on the deal, which Azevedo himself has said is crucial to ensuring the WTO's relevance. "The impasse has effectively paralysed the multilateral negotiations in the organization," Azevedo told reporters in Beijing. "Substantial discussions on all the measures in the Bali package programme have come to a halt. "I have described this impasse to members as the most serious crisis the WTO has faced," he said on the sidelines of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum's annual gathering, hosted this year by China. Members of the Geneva-based WTO set trade rules among themselves in an attempt to ensure a level playing field, and spur growth by opening markets and removing trade barriers including subsidies, excessive taxes and regulations. The Bali negotiations were seen as make-or-break for its mission of achieving a worldwide trade agreement fair to both rich and poor nations, which Azevedo has said is under threat from proliferating bilateral and regional trade deals often skewed in favour of richer countries. Bali was the...

MTN and Airtel mobile money subscribers will this month start sending and receiving money across the East African region. According to a statement from MTN Rwanda, once the pending documents between the telecom firm, National Bank of Rwanda (BNR) and the Central Bank of Uganda and MTN Uganda are signed, the service will be rolled out. Meanwhile, Airtel which has already kicked off a pilot phase of the project will soon roll out the full initiative across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, during the course of the month. Chidi Okpala, director and Airtel Money Africa head said during last month's East Africa Business Summit in Kigali that the service will extend convenience by way of cost efficiency and reach while facilitating remittances and trade within East Africa. The initiative will help boost cross border trade and lower the cost of transactions across the region, experts have said. Other analysts are seeing the initiative as being critical towards faster regional integration and boosting financial inclusion. Tigo Rwanda and Tigo Tanzania launched the service in February this year with the total number of cross border mobile money transactions standing at more than 3,097 transactions reflecting a total value of Rwf121.3 million according to central bank statistics. "Mobile money is good for speeding up transactions, saving time and money for people and businesses. Once cross border mobile money transfers are launched, I'll immediately switch to it as I usually send money to my children studying in Uganda," said Denise Umuhuza, a city trader. Source:...

Tanzania will soon join Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda in implementing the single-entry tourist visa as part of efforts to boost tourism in the region. Tanzanian Natural Resources and Tourism minister Lazaro Nyalandu attributed his country's delay in agreeing to the visa pact to issues related to lack of identity cards by Tanzanian citizens. He denied accusations that Tanzania was a stumbling block to the single-entry tourist visa launched last year. "Tanzania was unable to implement the single tourist visa since our citizens didn't have IDs, whereas Kenyans have for a long time been having the IDs," he said. "We are almost concluding the issuance of IDs to all Tanzanians and we will soon join other East African member states in implementing the single tourist visa initiative," he added. On the other hand, Mr Nyalandu said Tanzania had joined forces with Kenya on the war against poaching within the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem to contain the killing of elephants by poachers. He noted that the joint anti-poaching efforts between the two countries had helped protect the elephant population in the Serengeti national park in Tanzania and the Maasai Mara game reserve in Kenya. "We are happy to report that the number of elephants within the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem has increased from 3,000 in 2006 to 7,000 this year due to anti-poaching efforts," he said. ELIMINATE POACHING He revealed that poaching of elephants in Tanzania had dropped by 75 per cent, adding that plans were under way to eliminate the menace. Mr Nyalandu said Tanzania...

The 3rd meeting of the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Technical Committee on Movement of Business Persons (TTC-MBP) is being held from 3 to 6 November 2014, at Le Méridien Hotel, in Pointe aux Piments. Discussions are ongoing on a draft negotiating text on the Movement of Business Persons. Around 80 delegates from the 26 Tripartite Member States are participating in the meeting. The first COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Summit held in October 2008, in Uganda took major decisions in terms of moving towards a single market. One of the immediate priorities is to establish an enlarged Free Trade Area (FTA) encompassing the 26 Member States of COMESA, SADC and EAC. The Summit also agreed that negotiations to facilitate the movement of business persons should run in parallel with the negotiations on the Tripartite FTA, but on a separate track. The issue of movement of business persons is very important to Mauritius with regard to its regional integration process. The mobility of business persons is a key factor of free and open trade. Facilitating access to our businessmen to move in the region provides benefits in terms of reduced delays, costs and burdensome administrative procedures, thereby leading to more efficient flow of goods, services, capital and people. Without an appropriate framework on the movement of business persons, the benefits of regional integration would be undermined. Source:: All Africa

The business communities in 26 African countries are expected to benefit from an improved and harmonized trade regime post launch the Tripartite Free Trade Area of COMESA-EAC-SADC, popularly known as Grand Free Trade Area, in mid-December 2014. At a ministerial meeting of the Tripartite Sectoral Committee of Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Bujumbura, Burundi last month, it was agreed that the Grand Free Trade Area (FTA) would be launched at the Tripartite Summit of Heads of State or Government to be held in Egypt in mid-December 2014. The decision to launch the Grand FTA took into account the fact that the majority of the 26 Tripartite Member/Partner States have made ambitious tariff offers and were agreed on Rules of Origin to be applied in the interim whilst further work continues on product specific Rules of Origin. The 26 Member/Partner States from the COMESA-EAC-SADC have a combined population of 625 million people and a Gross Domestic Product of US$ 1.2 trillion. These states account for half of the membership of the African Union and 58 percent of the continent’s GDP. Once established, the Grand FTA will be the largest economic bloc on the African continent and will serve as the launching pad for the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) in 2017, according to a statement issued by Sindiso Ngwenya, secretary general of COMESA and chairperson of the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Task Force. “The Tripartite...

The East African Community (EAC) Sectoral Council on Legal and Judicial Affairs has been urged to finalise harmonisation of work and residence permits for citizens of the region. The 21st meeting of the Sectoral Council of Ministers responsible for EAC Affairs and Planning which has concluded in Kigali, noted that failure by EAC Partner States to harmonise national laws with regional integration legislation continues to hinder citizens’ full enjoyment of the benefits of integration. Kenya’s Devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru, who chaired the meeting, reminded delegates that the people of East Africa were expecting to access tangible benefits out of the investment the Partner States continue to put in the EAC integration process. She said the Sectoral Council needs to ensure the agreed commitments are effectively implemented. Stakeholders have raised concern that though the EAC Common Market Protocol came into being four years ago to enable the free movement of goods, services and people, member-states have done little since to integrate their markets. They say failure so far, for instance, to waive work permit requirements for citizens of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi has hurt market integration by hampering regional movement of labour. During the meeting, the EAC Secretariat was also directed to prioritise outstanding Council decisions and ensure that they are factored in the budget. Among other things, the Sectoral Council approved the revised roadmap for the Institutional Review, to run from October 2014 to April 2015. EAC Secretariat According to an EAC Secretariat statement, the...

On October 25, the Tripartite Sectoral Committee of Ministers announced that the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) covering three Regional Economic Communities – the East African Community (EAC), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) will be launched in mid-December at the Tripartite Summit of Heads of State and Government in Cairo, Egypt. Talks on the project among the 26 countries ranging from Egypt to South Africa, were launched in 2008 and endorsed in 2011. The TFTA will have a combined population of 625 million people, and an aggregate GDP of US$1 trillion covering 58 percent of the continent’s economic activity. The immediate objective is to reduce the thickness of borders across the continent so as to raise inter-regional trade across the continent, now standing at just 12 percent to total trade. An action plan released by the African Union says that the TFTA would be followed by a continental customs union forming in 2019. According to the WTO, in 2010, the 58 African countries were involved in 55 Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) of which 43 were South-South PTAs. PTAs (RECs or Regional Economic Communities is the usual acronym used when discussing regional integration in Africa) are good politics. Broad evidence suggests that economics and politics are complements rather than substitutes (as argued by defenders of multilateralism): RTAs reduce the probability of war through two channels: (i) by increasing the opportunity cost of war; and (ii) by reducing information asymmetries as...

Strong transportation infrastructure can be a boost for jobs, economic development and quality of life. But the condition of roads, railways and ports has long been slowing local business and foreign investment in Africa. On Oct. 28-30, the first Ministerial and Policy Conference on Sustainable Transport took place at UN Environment Program headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, to explore integrating sustainable policies into Africa’s needed transportation development. And much of that integration revolves around energy. According to the International Energy Agency’s Africa Energy Outlook report released Oct.13: “As urban areas grow significantly in size in sub-Saharan Africa, urban development policies can play an important role in guiding users of transport services towards private or public forms of transportation, and therefore influence future transport energy demand.” But whether or not Africa’s railways, ports and road infrastructure development will be “green,” it will be expensive – estimated to need $100 billion annually for improvements. But according to the African Development Bank, “Africa invests only 4 percent of its collective GDP in infrastructure, compared with China’s 14 percent.” “These numbers vary from who you’re quoting and it’s different if you’re looking at sub-Saharan Africa or the whole continent,” Vivienne Sequeira, the Corporate Council on Africa’s Director of Infrastructure told AFKInsider. “So it has to be qualified.” The Corporate Council’s 6th U.S.-Africa Infrastructure Conference on Oct. 7-8 in Washington, D.C., had the theme “Building Resilient Cities” and highlighted how Africa is coping with rapid urbanization – including intermodal transportation. “The infrastructure in cities is where...

In August 2013, a historical event unfolded on Africa’s biggest Safari land, Kenya. President Uhuru Kenyatta invited Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, and South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, to commission one of Africa’s biggest Port of Mombasa, along the Indian Ocean. At the colorful ceremony, a massive docking facility enabling larger vessels to dock was opened to cater for the increasing volumes of regional imports and exports. President Kenyatta would later set heads to roll with an unexpected revelation. He authorized Kenya Port Authority to open up a special office in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, allowing Rwandan traders to clear their goods instantly without facing a painful drive of 2000km to Mombasa. Why of all countries, would Kenya choose to invest in a special office in Rwanda, yet the country has consumed only 5% of Kenya’s exports in five years? Why not Uganda that covered 70% of Kenya’s regional trade in five years? Why not in South Sudan, not forgetting it is a strategic oil country. The Kenyan business community has an answer, and President Kenyatta has one. The strategic front Kenyatta is aware that Rwanda does not consume the large volumes of its exports. Kenya’s total transit traffic for regional exports and imports to Rwanda has been only 5% in five years. But Rwanda is strategic entry into DR Congo and Burundi where Kenya accesses two extra markets that create an aggregated 30% market for trade. Between 2009 and 2013, Kenya Port Authority handled about 3.5 million...

Since July 2014, EAC revenue officers work together to facilitate trade within the community. Some improvements remain made; the Single Customs Territory (SCT) does present some advantages.-Diane Uwimana "Since the single customs territory is operational, clearing processes are established in the country of destination while the goods are still at the port of Dar es Salaam", Leah Skauki explains, a SCT liaison officer at the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA). She goes on saying that once the declaration is over, when custom duties and taxes are paid, TRA verifies the physical goods. "The office grants a notification testifying that the goods fulfil all requirements in order to get the exit note." Within the new system, the number of weighbridges and non-tariff barriers are reduced because "truck drivers only have to show the documents which certify that the goods have undergone verification." "Time is money" Massoundi Mohamed Ben Ali, Administrative Director in Charge of Human Resources and Import - Export at the Bakhresa Grain Milling Burundi, is pleased with the new development. "Before the system was implemented, Bakhresa used to import 3800 Tonnes of wheat (40 trucks) and we were obliged to declare each truck with a different clearing agent. We now fill in one statement with one clearing agent. The procedures are done quickly with a small of amount of money", he points out. Clearing agents testify that the number of statement on the borders is reduced. "Before, transporters had to fill in a transit declaration (T1) on each border", one...