BUSINESS MOMBASA - The region's commissioners of customs, together with the heads of standards bureaus, port authorities and the East African Community (EAC) have undertaken an evaluation mission at the ports of Mombasa and Dar-es[-Salaam. They met to review the performance of the Single Customs Territory and also discuss issues related to the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) procedures. The Monday meeting in Mombasa was chaired by Uganda’s commissioner for customs Dicksons Kateshumbwa and included a walk-through of procedures at Mombasa port to establish points on delays and recommend the way forward. It was attended by among others Kenneth Bagamuhunda, the director general customs and trade at the EAC, Kenya Ports Authority Officers and other customs commissioners and officials in the region. It was noted that despite the achievements registered under the Single Customs Territory in the region, there are still challenges that need to be sorted. Such challenges include reducing system connectivity issues, implementing fully the mutual recognition of clearing agents to access the ports and reducing delays in lifting cargo from the port. The commissioners also interfaced with Kenya Railways officials and discussed the recent directive on usage of THE SGR. They recommended the need for enhanced consultations within the region on issues of SGR cargo clearance to ensure buy-in and support within the region. The commissioners directed the EAC secretariat and the customs technical officials at the port to validate and update railway  clearance procedures earlier developed under the Single Customs Territory to incorporate SGR  operations and Nairobi ICD...

Arusha — The East African Community (EAC) climate unit which was closed two years ago, will soon be back in operation. The unit which was established to assist the member countries to adapt climate change and mitigate its effects was closed down on January 20th, 2016 after donors pull out. But the EAC deputy secretary general (Productive and Social Sectors), Christophe Bazivamo said on Friday, March 2, that it was now being revived. "Donors have agreed to support its operations and we expect it will be back in action soon", he told reporters at the sidelines of investor's roundtable on environment and natural resources management. The unit, launched in December 2011, was supported by the European Union Commission, the Norwegian government and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DfID). One of its mandates was to assist farmers in the region to implement climate smart agriculture to mitigate impacts of weather vagaries. The $ 20 million programme was also to be implemented in the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) blocs. Speaking during the forum which focused on the conservation of resources within the Lake Victoria basin, Mr Bazivamo called for increased private sector involvement in addressing challenges of climate change. "There has been less involvement of the private sector. Yet this can enable them do business and improve livelihood of the people", he said. He told participants from all over the region and development partners that droughts and water scarcity...

Talk of the region's potential is getting tired, finds Felicity Landon ‘Potential’ is a word that crops up pretty frequently when discussing developments in East Africa’s ports sector. Certainly there are a number of significant projects moving ahead to provide deeper water, expanded facilities and entirely new ports. But for this region, ‘potential’ stretches far beyond national borders. In the tussle to serve landlocked countries, a port’s success is as much about its hinterland links and IT infrastructure as it is about straightforward quays and cranes. As such, there is significant investment in rail, bridges and inland terminals and dry ports. “There is a lot of investment in Africa, particularly from the Chinese. I am sure the potential is there – but how many years have we been saying Africa has potential?” says Dean Davison of London-based Clipper Maritime. “Certain ports benefit from their geographical location but they can’t control other factors such as national economic developments, local population and levels of demand.” Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, DP World’s chief executive, recently said: “Africa’s trade potential is enormous, evident in the 400% increase in trade between Africa and the rest of the world in the last two decades. Infrastructure development is more important than ever to maintain and increase this growth momentum.” Public-private partnerships (PPP) are the route to progress in Africa, he said – they are an effective model to fund projects, especially those on infrastructure, "while robust government policy and transparency are essential to its success". In all...

  A worker from Naivasha based at Van den Berg flower farm prepares roses for export to the European market ahead of Valentine. [Photo by Antony Gitonga/Standard] Last week’s EAC leaders’ meeting called for further negotiations on crucial trade treaty whose absence threatens the future of country’s exports to EU. Kenya will have to wait a little longer for a breakthrough in the crucial Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) deal after regional leaders called for further negotiations with their European counterparts. It emerged yesterday last week’s 19th Ordinary Summit of the East African Community (EAC) Heads of State in Uganda failed to reach a compromise on the trade treaty after the matter was deferred. The leaders resolved that their host Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni - who as the Summit chairman late last year led a delegation of EAC leaders to Brussels to push for a new deal - returns to the negotiating table. “The summit President visited the EU and engaged with them and raised the issues and a response was given. Some of the issues still lacked satisfactory answers and the summit agreed that he should go back for a second visit,” said new East African and Northern Corridor Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya in Nairobi when he took over office from his predecessor Phyllis Kandie. During the September last year meeting, Museveni was mandated to engage with the EU to address concerns that some EAC partner States had on signing the EPA as a bloc. Kenya has put up a...

NAIROBI, Kenya-- More than 2.5 billion people around the world, many of them in Africa, lack formal identification that enables them access to financial and government services, this is according to the United Nations and the ID2020 project. What’s more, less than 10% of adults in low and middle-income countries are on file in public credit registries. The result is that millions of people in East Africa are paying punitive interest rates for credit or are frozen out of access to financial services. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the region charge their borrowers notoriously high interest rates, often up to 30% per year.  This is partly because these lenders face a higher risk of loan defaults than mainstream banks due to a lack of borrower data to support lending decisions. MFIs in frontier markets have traditionally needed to make lending decisions without access to the sort of customer data and documentation commercial banks take for granted: credit scores, identification documents such as passports or government ID cards, bank statements, lending history and collateral. Fintech providers, financial inclusion companies and digital finance applications are filling this information gap with alternative credit data. Credit scoring applications like Tala in East Africa, for example, collect masses of data about phone owners and use these data points to produce accurate credit scores. This alternative credit data could help the credit officers at microfinance banks (MFBs) and MFIs who make lending decisions to make more accurate predictions about loan performance. This could, in turn, help improve collection...

The commitment by President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Tanzanian counterpart, Mr John Pombe Magufuli, to have trade and bilateral issues between the two countries resolved is an important step towards enhancing the free movement of goods and services in the East African Community (EAC). Even though the presidents described the recent cross-border hostilities as small differences, traders and investors have been worried about their future stake in the regional market. Resolving the dispute, which restricted the movement of goods, livestock and people across the common border, is critical to deepening trade and exchange among the six EAC countries. Kenya and Tanzania, being the two largest economies, should ideally be driving the EAC integration that includes Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. FOOD SECURITY Kenya and Tanzania need each other in many key areas. One is food security — which is on President Kenyatta’s ‘Big Four’ agenda to transform the economy in the next five years. Kenya is a food deficit country, as 80 per cent of its land is arid and semi-arid and frequent, prolonged droughts, have increased its dependency on food imports. Tanzania is better endowed, with large tracts of arable land and a fairly good weather. It is least affected by the recurrent Horn of Africa drought that mainly hits Kenya, South Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia. The latest Famine Early Warning System (Fews) network report shows Tanzania has minimal food challenges — except for areas occupied by refugees on the Burundi border. FOOD PRODUCTION Food production data shows...

The Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) was adopted during the last African Union Summit. It will bring together the fragmented three main organisations;the Common Market for Eastern and Southern  African countries (Comesa), the East African Community and the Southern African Development community. It is a combined market of over 1.2 billion people, the largest in the world but which, unfortunately has not transformed into intra-African trade as is the case of the European which is half of the market. Sometime this month, the inaugural CFTA summit is scheduled to be held in Kigali which coincides with President Paul Kagame occupying the chairmanship of the AU. A free trade area that encompasses the whole continent will be a milestone in an area that has a combined GDP of over $3 billion that is lying to waste. Most African countries have been conditioned to depend on foreign aid yet they are the source of developed countries’ bouncing health. Is this now time for the sleeping giant to wake up? That will only be informed by the commitment of those who will attend the CFTA summit. Africa leaders cannot afford to just meet, talk, go home and throw the signed agreements in the bottom drawer. It has to act and put aside the various foreign interests that have been calling the shots as people wallow in poverty. It is an embarrassment, if not an affront its people, when an African country rich in resources goes around with a begging bowl as its riches...

East African Community (EAC) member states are racing against time to finalise talks on proposals to lower age limit for imported used cars by 2021. The move to slash age limit to five years is informed by the urgency to spur the growth of motor assembly industries. At the just-concluded Heads of State Summit in Kampala, it was agreed that the process should be accelerated. Talks on harmonisation of age limits for imported vehicles and setting up assembly plants had been put on hold following recommendations of a study by EAC Committee on Industrialisation and Japan International Co-operation Agency, which said such undertaking (harmonisation process) would be grim without reducing the number of vehicles imported into the region. According to the proposals, the six countries — Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan — will reduce age limits for imported vehicles to five years by 2021. But it is understood that some countries are yet to ‘make up their minds’. Their indecisiveness is now holding back the entire process, according to sources familiar with the matter. Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and South Sudan would be the most affected because they do not have age limits set on such imports, while Tanzania and Kenya have their limits set at 10 and eight years respectively. Kenya favours the five-year age limit and has previously cautioned other partner states that they are likely to meet resistance during negotiations. “A further review of age limit to five years, would be crucial in luring investments...

Banning the import of second-hand clothes is not the answer to reviving East Africa’s textile industry. But the deal to phase out the imports also hands another political score to the US, writes DW’s Isaac Mugabi. The move to not ban the sale of second-hand clothing was a relief to petty traders. In 2015, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania agreed on a three-year plan to gradually phase out the importation of second-hand clothes and apparel from the United States in particular. Taxes were increased exponentially on second-hand clothes to deter more imports and a complete ban was to take effect in 2019. But the ban would have come at a heavy price.  Sensing the danger, the Trump administration acted fast and issued an ultimatum for 23 February 2018, for these leaders to rescind their plan or face the consequences. The US did this to protect its second-hand export sector. And on that date before the ultimatum expired, leaders from the East Africa region, with the exception of Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, met in Kampala to discuss the repercussions. In the end they caved in to US demands. However, the trade deficit for many African countries is instantly recognizable. Imports from Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda to the US totaled $43 million (€34 million) in 2016, while US exports to the same countries amounted to $281 million, according to figures from the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).   This is not fair trade as preached by the Americans and Europeans, and this is why...

The regional body is set to become the first Regional Economic Community (REC) in the world to introduce and distribute seed labels and certificates to improve access to quality seeds in the region. A senior Comesa representative, Mr Joseph Mpunga, revealed this during a regional meeting to discuss modalities of rolling out Comesa Seed Labels and Certificates in Lusaka last week. He said out of 80 million small-holder farmers in the Comesa region, only 20 percent have access to quality and improved seed. Once operational, Mr Mpunga said the Comesa regional seed certification will be issued by national seed authorities upon verification. He said a seed lot has to be registered on the Comesa variety catalogue and inspected to meet set field standards including laboratory analysis. “The potential total seed market in Comesa is at two million metric tonnes of quality and improved seed. However, the region is currently producing and accessing less than 520 000 metric tonnes of quality and improved seed. This has continued to impact negatively on the people,” said Comesa. “Although Comesa is home to some of the major seed producing countries in Africa such as Egypt, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Malawi and Uganda, the levels of supply remain stagnant with each country differing in the laws, procedures and systems applied to the seed value chain.” Comesa said the major challenge was due to fragmentation of regional seed markets into small national markets whereby each country operates its own seed policies and regulations different from other Comesa...