In 2017, 37 per cent of Kenya’s exports went to an African country, down from  40 per cent the previous year. This caused a near flat growth in export earnings, particularly from East Africa which accounts for more than half of Africa’s total trade with Kenya. These declining trade levels have spurred interest in the establishment of policies and structures that can boost intra-Africa trade. Trade Mark East Africa (TMA) has been working with East African Community member states on trade facilitation, with the goal of establishing borderless commerce. Business Daily’s Laban Cliff Onserio talked to TMA’s chief executive, Frank Matsaert, on the future of regional trade and what can be done to expand it. Your organisation has been supporting trade and investment in East Africa for more than 10 years and is about to go into Strategy II. What do you have to show for your efforts in phase 1 and what should we expect from this latest initiative?  Our big aim is to encourage job creation through increased trade. I would like to go for a target of about one million jobs. We want to increase trade in the region by reducing the cost of trade. What is different about this latest phase is that we are going to do some pilots to bring in anchor investment aimed at diversifying exports. The potential for Kenya to attract investment in labour-intensive manufacturing is strong so we want to help that process as part of the President’s Big Four Agenda initiatives....

Rwanda used clothing ban Rwandan traders have reacted to a move by the government to ban imports of used clothing which they believe will lead to loss of jobs and will have a negative impact on the country’s economy. The government increased tariffs on imported used clothes with the intention of eventually phasing out importation. Tariffs were hiked from 20 cents to $2.50 per kilogram. Domestic demand for locally produced clothes has been stifled, east African governments say, by the ubiquity of cheap, second-hand garments imported from Europe and the United States. However , Neighboring Kenya which in 2017 exported nearly $340 million of apparel duty-free to the United States, backed down. Uganda and Tanzania followed Kenya’s example and capitulated, agreeing to roll tariffs back to pre-2016 levels, leaving Rwanda the only East African Community member country to hold out. Source: Africa News

Speaking during the launch of the Presidential Infrastructure Champion Initiative workshop, East African Community and Northern Corridor Development Cabinet Minister Peter Munya notes that African states are underutilizing the vast resources in the continent. “The level of cross-border infrastructure especially the modes of transport is a challenge. We also have technological challenges that lead to most of the African projects being outsourced from other continents. There is also uncertainty in the political climate that affects long-term investments in the continent.” “These challenges affect the tapping of resources in Africa especially in reference to the population of 1.2 billion people that offer a very compact market for most of the goods and services being produced,” the CS said. Munya, however, said with the political goodwill shown by African Presidents with the agreement of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) by 44 African countries in March this year, there was hope in the realization of continental development. The CS also expressed confidence in East Africa regional development and referred to the Lamu Port, South Sudan, Ethiopia Transport program (LAPSSET) which he said is 48 per cent complete, as an example of regional growth. Munya further said the pipeline connecting Kenya and Uganda was set to be discussed during the Northern Corridor Summit later this month, with plans of re-launching the project being on course. “I can assure that the LAPSSET program is on course and major milestones have been achieved by the three countries.” “The issue on the pipeline with Uganda is almost...

Arusha — The East African Community (EAC) aviation body has been voted the second best in the world in spearheading safety and security enforcements. The Civil Aviation Safety and Security Oversight Agency (Cassoa) earned the slot after being voted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao). The Entebbe-based institution of the EAC emerged second in the votes on performance involving 17 other similar aviation oversight bodies across the world. "Cassoa was voted as the second best safety and security aviation agency in the world", affirmed the organization's acting executive director Emile Ngunza Arao over the weekend. He told the EAC secretary general Liberat Mfumukeko who visited the headquarters of the facility that the organization was doing well in discharging its duties despite a host of challenges. Cassoa was established in 2007 as one of the institutions of the Community and mandated to make air transportation in the region safe, efficient and profitable. It was also tasked to adopt common policies for the development of civil air transport in the region comprising of six partner states. Additionally, it was mandated to harmonise civil aviation rules and regulations and coordinate maintenance of high security. The safety and security oversight obligations and responsibilities fall under the EAC Treaty and the Chicago Convention which established Icao, a specialized agency of the UN. The Convention established rules of airspace, aircraft registration and safety and details the rights of the signatories in relation to air travel. As of November last year, the Convention, revised eight times...

Following its launch late last year, US-based technology and trade firm Kountable is partnering with SMEs within the East Africa region in its bid to secure early traction. Kountable has already signed an agreement with the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI) to open the platform to its SME members to ensure their businesses do not fail in supply by matching them to other companies offering the same goods and facilitating the trade. The company is focused on ICT, healthcare, industrial and energy equipment, and plans to cover other verticals. "At the end of the day, it is how quickly you can make goods trade faster and make transactions in the supply chain easier," said Bramuel Mwalo, Kenyan Country Manager at Kountable. Speaking at the Global Trade Review Africa conference in Nairobi, Mwalo said, "The supply chain trade in Africa is at US$3 trillion. Banks in trade finance only finance thirty percent of that. Some of the SMEs do not have collateral or the power to move supply goods from offshore countries." "These are the reasons why banks and financial institutions are unable to finance them. They do not take performance risk," he added. Kountable makes heavy use of cleaned data to ensure that SMEs fit the financing profile. They then pay upfront for the supplies and ensure they are successful. Mwalo said the lack of data in Africa represents a challenge to companies trying to establish a strong credit history, effectively locking them out of finance. "We...

Traders and cargo transporters have been forced off the Kigali-Katuna highway, a major trade route connecting Uganda and Rwanda, after a landslide damaged part of the road on May 14. Following the heavy rains, part of the Gatuna road in Rwanda, about 4km from the Ugandan side of Katuna border, trucks have now been diverted to the Mirama Hills One-Stop Border Post (OSBP). Although the trade and cargo movement through the Mirama OSPB is booming, traders at Katuna want the government of Rwanda to quickly repair the damaged road. Officials at Mirama say they have realised a clearance turnover of 200 per cent. Before the rains washed away Gatuna road, this OSBP had much less traffic. Ronald Kweezi, the Uganda Revenue Authority in–charge at Mirama, said apart from the additional kilometres one has to travel now, the business between Uganda and Rwanda has not been greatly affected. ‘We are lucky that this occurred since now we have got an occasion to prove that we are competent and have a more preferable route to use. Business between the two countries doesn’t need to stop,” Kweezi said. This OSBP is one of several built using funding from the UK’s Department for International Development through TradeMark Africa at a tune of the $13 million. Until now, Mirama Hills OSBP had been underutilised even though it can take more trucks and passengers. Statistics URA Mirama Hills customs office figures showed that in a typical day, roughly 18 incoming trucks and nine outgoing trucks are cleared....

Since the start of the new millennium, sub-Saharan African economies have undergone a dramatic boom. This surge has been marked by rapidly increasing trade and investment on continent – sometimes described as the “new scramble for Africa,”, which has seen competition between the US, European nations and China. China, however, leads on many fronts, and its sharpening global competition with the U.S. is likewise playing out on the African continent. For the US, imperial tensions have been expressed most recently in the growing trade war with China. But China’s rise as a global power has accelerated this rivalry for several years. Beyond a struggle for mere access to resources, imperialism is the competitive drive for control over resources and markets. Africa is a critical component of China’s strategic objectives for economic growth and hegemony. China’s expansion across the continent has been dramatic, from trade to extraction to manufacturing. Chinese companies are responsible for approximately 12 percent of the continent’s industry, at a value of around $500 billion. In 2012, China became Africa’s largest trading partner and U.S.-Africa trade began to decline, with the U.S. making a sharp turn away from African oil imports to domestic production. Jobs created by Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2016 doubled from the year before and are more than triple the number created by U.S. investment. But as Brookings describes in a recent report, “China’s role on the African continent has been defined by the financing of more than 3,000, largely critical, infrastructure projects…. China has extended more...

NAIVASHA, Kenya, May 22 (Xinhua) -- An east African bloc said on Tuesday that its members have agreed to ratify a protocol that will allow pastoralists to freely and legally drive their livestock across borders in search of pastures. Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) member states, who are holding a two-day meeting in the Kenyan town of Naivasha, challenged respective governments to move with speed and ratify the protocol so that the livestock corridors could be opened up. "Currently we have close to 1 million cattle from Kenya grazing in Moroto area of Uganda, and this is part of achieving this transhumance protocol," said Adan Yussuf Haji, chairman of the Kenyan parliament's Livestock Sub-sector Committee. Haji said that once the protocol is enacted, the issue of cattle rustling along border points would be a thing of the past. He noted that in most cases the movement of pastoralists and their livestock was caused by lack of pastures and water. The lawmaker challenged respective governments to move with haste and ratify the protocol so that the livestock corridors could be opened up, noting that parliament had embarked on the process of setting up a Livestock Development Authority. "This country has never had such an authority which will come in handy in addressing challenges facing members of the pastoralists' community which rely on livestock," he said. The meeting was organized by the Center for Pastoral Areas and Livestock Development (ICPALD), IGAD's specialized institution for pastoral areas and livestock development, to discuss and...

FOOD  KAMPALA - The East African Community has launched the Regional East African Trade in staples (REACTS-II)project that will increase production of staple food to reduce  importations from non-member states. The three-year project worth sh22.2b agricultural covers Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda. It is aimed at helping 300,000 small holder farmers across the three countries. The project is funded by Kilimo Trust with support from Alliance from Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). Speaking at the launch on Monday, the Deputy Prime minister, Moses Ali, presiding over the event said the project was timely as it will provide alternative guaranteed markets for farmers and formalise business in agriculture in the EAC partner states. “At the moment our farmers are held hostage by the middlemen and Uganda has no arrangement to buy from farmers as it was before liberalisation, in the 80s. We thought that with the introduction of the Warehouse Receipt System, this situation would be addressed,” Moses noted. He added that this will reap maximum benefits from national and regional trade. Moses further added that concerted efforts must be made to address the supply side constraints related to quantity, quality and regular supplies at competitive prices compared to imports from outside the region. He also noted that Kenya and Rwanda always experience an annual deficit of more than 400,000MT and 150,000MT respectively yet Uganda normally has a surplus of food. “Uganda has a comparative advantage having suitable agro-ecologies for production of maize and beans and a ready market for these products in...

China has asked East Africa countries to consider its free trade proposal, saying it will be of great economic benefit to the region. Chinese Embassy's economic and commercial affairs counsellor, Guo Ce further downplayed claims that Kenya had declined the plan, noting that they are yet to receive any formal response on the proposal from any of the EAC member countries. "Claims that Kenya has opposed free trade proposal are not true. Not a single country has responded to this proposal. The proposed trade arrangement will deepen economic and cultural ties between China and East Africa, opening numerous opportunities for business operators,’’ said Guo. Last week, Trade PS Chris Kiptoo told a local daily that Kenya will not sign a free trade agreement that China is advancing with EAC but instead propose for a preferential trade agreement with the Asian economic giant. Kiptoo said that the free trade pact will worsen the huge trade imbalance between the two countries and would further benefit China at the detriment of Kenya's economy. According to Economic Survey 2018, Kenya’s imports from China narrowly missed the Sh400 billion mark to hit Sh390 billion, accounting for 23 per cent of total imports. The glaring trade imbalance between Kenya and China resonates across Africa, with data from China Africa Research Initiative (CARI) showing that the continent sold $34 billion (Sh3.4 trillion) with China on a total trade of Sh17.2 trillion in 2015. "It is time we review our trade partnership with China if we want to...