Kenya has lifted restrictions on wheat flour and cooking gas imports from Tanzania, which has in turn allowed milk and cigarettes from Kenya. The countries’ Foreign Affairs ministers said in Nairobi on Sunday that the move followed discussions between presidents Uhuru Kenyatta (Kenya) and John Pombe Magufuli. “The Republic of Kenya and the United Republic of Tanzania will lift any other restrictions that affect products and services exchanged between the two countries,” they said in a statement read by Tanzania Foreign Affairs minister Augustine Mahiga, who is also in charge of the East African Community Affairs docket. Kenyans will however still have to apply for visas when travelling to Tanzania for business, though Mr Mahiga said they were looking into the issue. “If there are still some bottlenecks, we are pledging to address them to allow our citizens to travel easily,” he said. The two countries would continue to man border posts jointly while the production of an East African Community (EAC) passport would help ease movement across the states, he said. Committee The two countries also agreed to set up a joint technical committee chaired by the Foreign Affairs ministers and comprising the EAC Affairs, Trade, Finance, Interior, Energy, Agriculture, Transport and Tourism ministries and any other relevant government agency. Kenya banned the importation of cooking gas from Tanzania in April, with the Energy ministry at the time saying the move was meant to curb the proliferation of illegal filling plants. Petroleum Principal Secretary Andrew Kamau said at the...

Dar es Salaam. Economic incapability, poor quality of agricultural produce, low quantity of productions and untimely delivery of goods are challenges prohibiting Tanzanians from benefiting from the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Opening a day long roundtable discussion on local content development in the country's agriculture and minerals; status and opportunities on Thursday, National Economic Empowerment Content (NEEC) Acting Director of local content Ms Esther Mmbaga, called upon stakeholders to collaborate in addressing the challenges. "The government should create conducive environment for citizens to benefit from FDIs. Investors and the private sector should also take part in building capacity of the people in terms of technology and skills," she said. In her welcoming remarks, the Science Technology Innovation Policy and Research Organization (STIPRO) Executive Director, Dr Bitrina Diyamett said, the discussion was called as a result of a study on local content which established its emphasis in the Oil and Gas subsector alone. The discussion on how Tanzanians benefit on local content comes a time President John Magufuli has accented into law three mineral laws passed by the Parliament last month which will ultimately subject various mining contracts into review. Source: The Citizen

THE increased usage of natural gas instead of oil for power generation has contributed to the decline of the value of imported fuel. According to the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) monthly economic review for June, the value of oil imports, which constitutes the largest share in goods import, fell by 309.3 million US dollars to 1,852 million US dollars. Tanzania is executing power projects at Kinyerezi that make use of natural gas for power generation. Currently, the Kinyerezi II gas power project is progressing where by mid next year 240 megawatts will be entered into the national grid. The value of imports of goods and services amounted to 9,738.8 million US dollars in the year ending May 2017, about 6.6 percent lower compared with the import bill for the year ending May 2016. Much of the decrease was noted in oil and capital goods. Capital goods import declined partly due to the completion of major projects and exploration activities. However, the value of imports of food and food stuffs went up by 13.9 per cent to USD 480.2 million, owing to an increase in import of sugar and cereals. Services payment in the year ending May 2017 was 1,974.8 million US dollars compared with 2,577 million US dollars in the year ending May 2016, largely due to decline in travel and transportation payments. Travel payments fell by 36.6 per cent, while payments under transportation declined by 11.8 per cent. The decline in transportation was consistent with the fall in goods...

President Uhuru Kenyatta yesterday opened the Mwatate-Taveta road and commissioned the construction of a six-lane highway between Mombasa and Mariakani as part of efforts to decongest cross-border transport corridors. The Mwatate-Taveta road, built at a cost of Sh8.4 billion, is part of a transnational highway which runs from Kenya through Tanzania to Burundi. It was the Kenyan side that remained untarmacked until the African Development Bank agreed to jointly fund the project with the government. “All this investment in infrastructure we are making here and across the country, is meant to stimulate economic growth that will create the much-needed jobs for our young people,” said the President. The dualling of the Mombasa-Mariakani road will start with the construction of the 11.3 km from the Coastal city to Kwa Jomvu at a cost of Sh6.1 billion. The second section of the dualling of the highway from Kwa Jomvu to Mariakani would also be done concurrently at a cost of Sh6 billion. President Kenyatta, who was accompanied by Deputy President William Ruto, directed Transport Cabinet secretary James Macharia (above) and the Chinese contractor to ensure the project employs local youth. Other projects in Mombasa include the Sh2.7 billion Port Reitz-Moi International Airport access road, a crucial link that will provide the necessary connection to the newly constructed second container terminal. The construction of the Mombasa Southern Bypass (Dongo Kundu–Mwache road) at a cost of Sh12.5 billion is also ongoing, President Kenyatta said with the DP adding that the contractor would be on...

The formal launch of the once touted the mega economic bloc for Africa, the Tripartite Free Trade Area (FTA), faces further delay because only one country has so far ratified its creation out of 19 member states. A minimum of 14 ratifications are required for the agreement to come into force, combining three regional economic communities, the East African Community (EAC), Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc) and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa). This emerged last week when Madagascar, a Comesa member, appended its signature to the Tripartite Agreement before senior officials of the EAC, Sadc and Comesa. "Egypt is the only country to have ratified the Agreement. A total of 14 ratifications are needed for the agreement's entry into force," officials at the event in Antananarivo were told. Under the Agreement, the three economic blocs were to merge into a single free trade area, the largest in Africa, with a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $ 1.3 trillion, making it also one of the largest FTAs in the world. Although the signing of the Agreement by Madagascar, only a few days after South Africa did so, the EAC secretary general, Liberat Mfumukeko, the current chairperson of the Tripartite Task Force, admitted that negotiations were going at a snail's pace and that little has been achieved. "There had been limited progress in Phase Two negotiations and the agreement on the movement of business persons," he said in Kampala on July 7th, hardly a week before the Antananarivo...

In Abdigi Ramadhani’s 13 years as a truck driver, nothing has been more irksome than the lack of certainty over his itinerary each time he ferries goods between Zambia and Tanzania. The volume of cargo handled by the Port of Dar-es-Salaam has been growing at an average of 9 percent a year for the past five years: in 2011, the port handled 10.4 million tons and in 2013 it handled 13.1 million tons, which rose to 13.8 million tons in 2016. “Delays have been the norm at the Port of Dar-es-Salaam,” Ramadhani says, “but now the Port is busier than ever, with a lot more cargo coming in.” There are many more transporters than there used to be, he says, but the port has yet to catch up. It may summon 50 trucks to load up at one go but end up not serving them all, making it impossible for the long-haul truckers who shuttle goods between Tanzania and its landlocked neighbors to plan. Until now, all this cargo has been distributed between the port’s two terminals: the terminal for general cargo, which is operated by the public sector and handles 70 percent of the throughput, while the rest is handled by the dedicated containerized cargo terminal, currently leased out to a private operator. The port is already considered to be operating above its capacity, yet projections are that the volume of goods handled by it could almost triple to more than 38 million tons by 2030. Volume may double...

Traders said Ugandan trucks are not allowed to load from Tanzania’s district of Gisenyi Minister of Trade Industry and Cooperatives, Amelia Kyambadde is to engage her counterpart in Tanzania to find solutions to ongoing standoff between Ugandan traders and officials from Tanzania. This stems from revelations from traders that they are often harassed and charged different fares and sometime their goods are confiscated even when they meet the requirements. They made the call to the minister who was recently touring the Mutukula border post. Through the Rakai district chairman, Benon Mugabi, traders said Ugandan trucks are not allowed to load from Tanzania’s district of Gisenyi. He added that when smugglers run to Tanzania, it still takes lengthy clearing procedures to get into Tanzania to pursue them. He was joined by the chairperson of cross border women traders, Jane Benuza who reported that they are forced to pay more than two clearing agents to get their goods on the Ugandan side even when they have a certificate of origin. "You have to pay a clearing agent in Kyaka before getting to the actual border of Tanzania and then later you pay the one considered as the final agent on the Tanzanian side, when you inquire they brand you a noisy person and even harass you more ,the next time you go trading," explained Benuza. Kyambadde who is the chairperson of the EAC council of ministers promised to follow up the matter through the council of ministers at this year’s EAC summit,...

Among optimists, the proposal by East African Community (EAC) member states to ban the importation of used clothes by 2019 is great because it could spark the growth of a local textile industry in the bloc. But pessimists say the move will complicate the region’s trade arrangements with leading partners including the U.S. which is also a large exporter of used clothes to the region. It could also increase the cost of clothes in countries where the majority of the population is poor and lead to the import of new cheap clothes to out-compete the very industries the regional governments seek to protect. Faced with these options, some business analysts are proposing a middle-ground that reflects the status quo. They say the region is better off allowing entry of used clothes as it also develops its own textile industry. “As a region, there’s need to allow entry of any products provided there  are no illegalities in the sale of those items on our markets while at the same time boosting  their  production locally,”  said Charles Ocici, the executive director at Enterprise Uganda, a USAID-sponsored agency for equipping skills to small and medium firms. He suggests a co-existence of used and new clothes in the regional markets and the use of taxes to ensure fair competition between them. That way, Ocici says, the burden of the ban will not only be felt by the poor but by all clothing consumers, who will, in turn, buy the locally made clothes. He added...

Plans to harmonize East Africa mobile tariffs to create a single mobile network face hurdles as some nations fear that their telecoms could suffer losses, officials said on Monday. Communication Authority of Kenya Director General Francis Wangusi told Xinhua in Nairobi that once a country is not sure of the consequences of the one area network, it needs to be conscious not to find itself making a mistake. Wangusi said that one of the things hindering the adoption of the single network is the fear of illegal termination of international traffic purporting to be local calls. "We are already experiencing cases where calls from outside East African Community (EAC) are being illegally terminated locally and then relayed as a local calls and this is denying revenues to local telecoms," he added. The one area network was introduced in 2014, but so far only Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan have joined the single network. Other EAC member states such as Burundi and Tanzania are not yet part of the network that seeks to ensure that all intra-EAC calls are treated as local calls. The regulator is seeking to purchase a device management system to monitor its network so as to prevent the illegal termination of internationals and raise the credibility of the single network. Wangusi said that EAC partner states are set to have a meeting towards the end of month in order to discuss ways to overcome the challenges. Source: Xinhua Net

State minister for Transport Aggrey Bagiire, last week on Thursday asked his Tanzanian counterpart to harmonise the preferential treatment his country offers to transit goods as a way of encouraging the use of the Central Corridor, Uganda’s alternative access to the sea. Mr Bagiire, while signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on reviving inland transport on Lake Victoria and development of a railway as part of the Central Corridor, to implore Tanzania to reduce the high road user charges. Currently, trucks from Uganda are charged $500 (Shs1.7m) each yet Uganda charges only $40 (Shs140,000) per truck from Tanzania. The exorbitant cargo transit fees, Mr Bagiire said, were discouraging the use of the port of Dar ss Salaam by Ugandan traders since it increases the cost of transportation. According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which coordinated signing of the MoU, Mr Bagiire asked Tanzania to “consider revising the rates downwards” to attract more traders to use the route. Dar es Salaam is Tanzania’s principal port with a rated capacity of 4.1 million down weight tonnage (dwt) dry cargo and six million dwt bulk liquid cargo. Mr Bagiire signed the MoU on behalf of Uganda while Prof Makame Mbarawa, the Transport minister, signed on behalf of Tanzania in Dar-es-Salaam. The signing was witnessed by the Charge D’Affairs at Uganda High Commission in Dar-es-Salaam, Oscar Edule, Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) managing director Charles Kateba, and other officials from the two countries. The MoU also reinforces proposed plans by...