South Sudan on Friday last week, became the sixth member of the East African Community as the world’s youngest nation embarked on implementing comprehensive reforms in order to catch up with the other member states. President Salva Kiir said conflict resolution and upholding peace in his country was his biggest commitment after inking an ascension Treaty in Dar es Salaam with President John Magufuli, who is the Community’s chair. President Kiir named some of the reforms that his country would be making in the near future as the establishment of national revenue collection authority, forming a special ministry in his government charged with EAC affairs, review and passing number of laws and policies in order to harmonise them with other community member states. He also said his country also needs capacity building and institutional support, and he was hoping that the community will extend its helping hand. “We are equally aware of the major progress that the EAC has made in the recent times. The community is today respected as the most integrated bloc on the continent and one among the best globally. We accept this challenge of competitive open market through hard work and commitment. Tied with necessary reforms, South Sudan will raise to the occasion,” he said. On the execution of peace deal in his country President Kiir said: “We believe with peace and stability in our country progress will be made and our objectives will be achieved.” In August last year, President Kiir and his arch-rival who...

Rwandan officials said that contractors are yet to complete works on substations and high-voltage power lines that would facilitate the power trading plan, which is part of the Northern Corridor Infrastructure Projects. The three countries had proposed to start trading in power by 2015, a deadline that was pushed to April this year. But chief executive of Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Ltd Erias Kiyemba told The EastAfrican that the partner states will not meet the new deadline due to challenges such as delays by the contractor. “We are behind schedule…. The transmission lines are not yet complete because of delays with the contractor, both on the Ugandan and Rwandan side,” said Mr Kiyemba. “Even if we had finished ours, the Rwanda side is also facing challenges…they haven’t finished theirs, and power can’t jump!” While Kigali has completed a high voltage — 220kv — interconnection electric grid transmission line to tap power from western Uganda, the Birembo/Shango sub-stations are behind schedule. “The Kagitumba-Mirama-Shango line was completed in October last year,” a statement from Rwanda’s Ministry of East African Affairs notes. A source from the Ministry said that they plan to complete the sub-stations by October. “We experienced some delays in our Birembo /Shango sub-stations, but we are now at 80 per cent complete,” he said. Kigali has asked Isolux Ingenieria, a Spain-based engineering firm contracted to build the power lines and sub-stations to expedite the project. The EastAfrican could not independently establish why Isolux had failed to beat the deadline. However,...

Uganda will take its oil to the market through Tanzania’s Tanga port, leaving Kenya to build its own pipeline to Lamu, if the positions taken at the just-ended talks in Kampala are maintained. “We have lost the pipeline deal to Tanzania. The only deal is to go back to the drawing board to construct our own pipeline to Lamu port,” a senior Kenyan official told The EastAfrican on Friday. The outcome of the talks was closely guarded, with the technocrats meeting in Kampala insisting that the final position would be announced during the Northern Corridor Heads of State Summit next week. The EastAfrican, however, learned that Uganda may have already sealed a deal with Tanzania to take the Tanga route and to let oil firm Total E&P of France fund and operate the pipeline. Last week in Kampala, Uganda held two separate meetings with Kenya and Tanzania; each consultation came up with a report. It had been agreed that the technical teams would compile the two reports and hand over a joint report to the heads of State. READ: Battle of wits hots up as Kenya, Uganda officials resume oil pipeline talks However, the Ugandan team is said to have been reluctant to share the report of its consultations with Tanzania. “Uganda is playing hardball and has refused to share the report from its discussions with Tanzania. This then leaves us nowhere,” said one of the Kenyans close to the discussions. However, it has also emerged that the Kenyan officials...

Tanzania has called the Omani business community to explore trade and investment opportunities as the country is geared to promote industrialisation through private investments. Last week, Samia Suluhu Hassan, vice president of Tanzania, told the visiting Omani delegation headed by H E Dr Ali bin Masoud bin Ali al Sunaidy, Minister of Commerce and Industry, that Tanzania offers ample trade and investment opportunities and an access to a market of more than 150mn people in the East African Community (EAC) region. Tanzania-samia-suluhu H E Dr Sunaidy particularly mentioned investments in real estate, foodstuff, transport and logistics services and connecting the ports of Duqm, Salalah and Sohar with Dar es Salaam Port as priority areas. He said the high-level Omani delegation reflects the real desire of the two countries to augment the trade relations. He added that the agreement to develop the Bagamoyo port, signed in 2015, will open wider horizons for cooperation and creating business opportunities for companies of both countries. The Oman business delegation, comprising businessmen and industrialists was in Tanzania on a three-day visit to explore opportunities in trade and industrial cooperation. Samia urged the Omani visitors to take advantage of the country’s drive to boost industrialisation by tapping into a wide range of areas and also benefit from well balanced and competitive package for fiscal and non-fiscal incentives for large scale investors. “Tanzania has a vibrant market-based economy in which there are unlimited investment and business opportunities, which you are invited to explore,” she was quoted in...

The signing by South Sudan of the Treaty of Accession into the East African Community ushers in a new era for East Africa, one full of new opportunities but still fraught with challenges. South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and his Tanzanian counterpart John Magufuli were scheduled to sign the treaty on 15 April, the latter having been mandated by the recent regional heads of state summit to sign on behalf of the EAC. Throughout the protracted negotiations that led to the admission of Sudan Sudan into the Community followed by the formal accession, there was no unanimity of opinion regarding the new member. There were essentially two diametrically opposed schools of thought. The first group – and this is perhaps the larger group – felt that South Sudan was not ready to join the regional bloc and should not be allowed to do so. Matters were not helped by the outbreak of civil war in December 2013 and the numerous lost opportunities at crafting a lasting peace in the country. Many people felt that with the current instability in that country, allowing it to join the Community would be of no benefit. There is little trade that can take place in war-time, and indeed many traders from the region fled South Sudan when civil war broke out. Efforts to rebuild infrastructure stalled, and firms that had rushed to take advantage of opportunities in the world’s youngest state hurriedly closed down. Why, then, did some people feel that the country’s application...

DAR ES SALAAM, April 16, 2016 - Tanzania President John Magufuli (R), who is also current chairman of the East African Community (EAC), and South Sudanese President Salva Kiir exchange documents shortly after signing an agreement for South Sudan to officially join the regional bloc, at the State House in Dar es Salaam, Tanzannia, on April 15, 2016. South Sudan on Friday officially joined the East African Community (EAC), becoming the sixth member of the regional bloc after Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Source: Prokerala

ARUSHA, Tanzania, April 15 (Xinhua) -- Reuben Mapunda is a farmer in Tanzania's northern region of Manyara. He owns 30 acres of maize farm in Simanjiro district, harvests an average of 500 bags of maize per season, and sells them in the form of flour. However he doesn't know whether he could gain more profit as now he relies on the small Tanzanian market. Like Mapunda, many Tanzanian farmers are unaware whether they could sell their agro-produce to the population of more than 160 million people in the East African Community (EAC) countries. The EAC is made up of six East African nations, namely Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. "I am not aware of the East African market. Is it open to small farmers like me?" queries the 46-year-old man. There are many Tanzanian farmers who grow maize and other crops more than what Mapunda do, but look for larger market during harvesting season. "This is a challenge. EAC partner states themselves haven't empowered people at the grassroots levels on the opportunities available in the trading bloc," says Josiah Sadock, a Tananian cereal crop businessman, who also does business in neighbouring Kenya. Makongoro Nyerere is the chairman of Tanzania Chapter in the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), who is also aware of the challenge. He is now leading a team of regional parliamentarians to carry out a countrywide sensitization to woo Tanzanians to tap the existing opportunities in the trading bloc. The EALA member says time has come...

Speaking after a sensitisation seminar for Members of Parliament (MPs) of the Standing Order Committees on the integration process, the chairman of Tanzanian MPs in the EA Legislative Assembly (EALA), Mr Makongoro Nyerere, said that this comes after presidents of member states signed an agreement. “Following the signing, the community decided to upgrade the status of the EAC passport by making it international. Already the design has been picked where it will be uniform but each country will have its own name,” he said. Mr Nyerere explained that this is the first part of the phasing out of national passports and that the production of the newly designed passports has begun with specific quotas going to individual countries. Earlier, Mr Nyerere had given a talk on the integration process of the EAC, saying that the process had not gone as planned because politicians have not shown the required zeal, but there was a need to revive the push and massively educate the masses on the opportunities and challenges. He said that the agreed areas of cooperation among member states include trade, infrastructure, investment, industry promotion, increased quality, financial services, human resources, science and technology, agriculture and food security, environment and natural resources, tourism and wildlife, health, social welfare and development, gender equity, politics, security and the judiciary. “The community has made great strides in some of these areas of cooperation like the one stop border posts where a Tanzanian coming in from Kenya only goes through the immigration on that...

LOCAL companies will benefit from a wide range of job and trade opportunities to be created as construction of the Bagamoyo Port begins next year, a top officer of Oman's State General Reserve Fund which finances the project has said. Mr Mohamed Al - Tooqi, the SGRF Country Manager said in Dar es Salaam yesterday that many local companies would be sub-contracted for construction works of a 10 billion US dollar (over 20trn/-) port and special economic zone in Bagamoyo, Coast Region billed to transform the country into a regional trade and transport hub. "There will be quite high participation for local companies ... they will be recruited on competitive edge," he said during Oman -Tanzania roadshow held on the visit of Oman business delegation in Tanzania to explore trade and investment opportunities. Bagamoyo Port project, being built at Bagamoyo, 75 km (47 miles) north of Dar es Salaam, will be the country's largest infrastructure project constructed under support of Oman's State General Reserve Fund and China Merchants Holdings (International), China's largest port operator. According to government officials, the port will be able to handle mega-ships - with a container vessel size of 8,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) - after its first phase of construction is completed, with room for expansion. It will be able to handle twice the amount of cargo handled by Dar es Salaam Port and will help reduce the congestion at the port. Mr Al-Tooqi said local companies would be registered for various activities and would...

With the demise of the Doha Development Round at the World Trade Organization Ministerial in Nairobi this past December, the multilateral approach to global trade negotiations has largely ended. Given that the number of regional trade agreements has increased from 70 in 1990 to more than 270 today, it appears that it is every region for itself when it comes to global trade. Tripartite Free Trade Agreement and Continental Free Trade Agreement In certain respects, Africa is well positioned in this new era regional trade relations. The Tripartite Free Trade Agreement (TFTA), signed in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt in June 2015, brings the Common Market of Eastern and South Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern Africa development Community (SADC) into thecontinent’s largest free-trade zone covering 26 countries and stretching from Cape Town to Cairo. Already, it is estimated that the volume of intra-regional trade among these three blocks has increased from $2.3 billion in 1994 to $36 billion in 2014, a more than 12 fold increase from 7 percent to 25 percent of trade over 20 years. While low compared to the EU (70 percent) or Asia (50 percent), it is a positive trend line. The TFTA is an important boost for regional integration in Africa and is seen as a stepping stone for Africa to realize its ambition of creating a Continental Free Trade Agreement (CFTA). Implementation is behind schedule, however, and efforts are being made to complete the negotiations within the 36 months set out in...