While many new African rail lines have been proposed over the past 20 years, there is a growing trend of them actually being built. To take one example, the first phase of the new standard gauge line in Kenya, from Mombasa to Nairobi, is approaching completion. Indeed, it is this project that may have given added emphasis to the development of the Tanzanian line. Both new lines, as with the ageing colonial-era lines in the region, connect landlocked Eastern Africa to the rival ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, Kenya and Tanzania’s competing windows on the world. Mombasa is already the larger of the two and its possession of a far superior rail connection could have proved deciding in attracting business. The new contract relates to the 300km section of line between Dar and Morogoro. A joint venture of Turkey’s Yapi Merkezi and Mota-Engil of Portugal were awarded the contract in December following a competitive tender managed by Tanzania Railways Corporation. Both companies have made Africa a marketing priority. Yapi Merkezi had requested financial guarantees on the project from the Turkish government. Ankara is keen to encourage much greater involvement in Africa by Turkish companies. However, the government and the state owned rail utility may have to review the tender process for future contracts. Although a massive 40 companies asked for the tender application documents, only one bid was received. It is possible that the successful contractors were prepared to make an attractive financial offer in order to aid...

Trade and investment opportunities as well as regional and international co-operation will feature high on the agenda during visit by South African President Jacob Zuma who is expected in the country tomorrow for a three-day state visit on the invitation of President John Magufuli. Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Co-operation, Dr Augustine Mahiga, told a news conference in the city yesterday that the South African leader's delegation will include six ministers and 80 businesspersons. The visit by President Zuma follows a meeting with Dr Magufuli during the 28th African Union (AU)'s Heads of State meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. "President Zuma will arrive in Tanzania on May 10 (Wednesday) evening and he will be received by his host, President Magufuli," Dr Mahiga explained. During the visit, the two leaders will as well witness the signing of three agreements on co-operation in environment, energy and transport. Apart from the three agreements, the two countries are presently in negotiations on other areas of co-operation such as health, education, infrastructure and trade in addition to trade, investment, tourism and irrigation farming. On May 11, this year, President Zuma and his host will hold private talks and thereafter take part in a meeting to include delegates from the two countries. "It is after the meetings that the two leaders will witness the inking of the three agreements on environment, energy and transport," Dr Mahiga, a veteran diplomat, told reporters. Adding; "Discussions are also underway on co-operation in other areas, including the education...

A newly designed Short Messaging Service for reporting trade barriers within the tripartite regional economic blocs has been launched. The SMS will supplement the current web based online system for reporting, monitoring and elimination of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) used by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (Sadc). The Tripartite online reporting system is a real-time, mechanism for reporting, processing, monitoring and resolving NTBs and is available on www.tradebarriers.org. It was operationalised in November 2010. The SMS tool was first launched in 2013 in Zambia to facilitate a diverse spectrum of economic operators, especially the informal and small scale traders who may not have access to the internet. “At the time the design of the SMS reporting too, there was a central number to which the economic operators in different countries could send the SMS messages to report the trade obstacles that they could have encountered,” Mr Tasara Muzorori, senior trade officer in Comesa said. This was expensive for the economic operators as it involved incurring roaming charges. “It was also a challenge to publicise that central number to the relevant players in each of the countries as the foreign numbers did not identify with local users,” Mr Muzorori said. “Further, the system was faced with sustainability challenges as it was operated outside the National NTBs structures thereby requiring continued donor support to cater for administration costs.” This led to the re-design of the SMS system whereby each...

The Prime Minister, Mr Kassim Majaliwa, has directed government institutions at the Dar es Salaam Port to operate 24 hours a day and seven days a week (24/7), starting tomorrow, to reduce dwell time and make it competitive. The Prime Minister said during the 10th Tanzania National Business Council (TNBC) meeting that all government institutions including Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA) and Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) should reschedule their working hours to enable the port operate 24/7. "From tomorrow, I want implementation of this directive," he said at the meeting in response to complaints of inefficiency at the Dar es Salaam Port from the Chairperson of the Tanzania Truck Owners Association, Angelina Ngalula. Ms Ngalula had said that dwell time at the port was between 10-13 days which makes it uncompetitive in the region as its closest rival, Mombasa Port had dwell time of 3-4 days. She said that there was lack of coordination between government institutions which contribute to delays in cargo clearance at the port. No one is bothering to know why cargo clearance takes that long. There are so many institutions, but they have no coordination," she complained. The Prime Minister said the government understands red tape. The World Bank said in 2015 that inefficiencies at Dar es Salaam Port cost Tanzania and its neighbours up to 2.6 billion US dollars a year. Kenya's Mombasa port, which is the largest in the region, is much more efficient. If Dar es Salaam...

The six member States of the East African Community (EAC) are set to meet this week in Rwanda to push for the implementation of the One Area Mobile Network, officials said on Monday. Kenya's Communication Authority Director General Francis Wangusi told Xinhua that Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan are already part of the single network. "Later this week EAC ministers in charge of telecommunications will discuss ways to fast track operationalization of the single network," Wangusi said on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the 36th Ordinary Session of the Administrative Council of the pan-African postal union. Once the single area network is effective, all intra-EAC mobile tariffs will be harmonized so that the calls within the trading bloc will be treated as local calls. Wangusi said that the overall objective is to reduce the cost of communication in the region. "It is unfortunate that it is cheaper to call Europe, Asia and the US from EAC partner states than it is to call other member states," said Wangusi. While South Sudan has joined the single network, it is yet to implement the network, and Tanzania will have to amend its telecom laws before it becomes part of the network. Wangusi said that due to civil strife in Burundi, it may take the country longer than expected to join the single mobile network. The one area network will be a building block to the Smart Africa Initiative that aims to make Africa a single mobile area network. Wangusi...

East Africa still seems relatively unloved as a petroleum province and yet it has a number of positive aspects: There is a regional entity, the East African Community, which draws together Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania (but not Mocambique). There is a declared ambition to bring energy to the combined population of 150+ million but little yet in the way of actual development or actionable plans. Post Brexit, the UK Department of International Trade (DIT) has declared an Oil & Gas High Value Campaign for East Africa, the aim being to deliver opportunities for UK companies in the region. DIT has representatives in-country and an officer in Whitehall who carries the regional responsibility: DIT's current early focus seems to be on the big gas (LNG) developments offshore Tanzania and Mocambique (see 3.). There is no shortage of resources and reserves. Significant oil has been found onshore in the rift plays of Uganda and Kenya; there is commercial gas under production in Tanzania, and at least one further discovery; there are world class (??100 Tcf) gas discoveries offshore Tanzania and Mocambique; there is the potential for a significant oil play in the coastal region from northern Mocambique, through Tanzania, potentially into Kenya, first evidence of which may be provided by recent wells drilled by Aminex in Tanzania and Sasol in Mocambique, There is current production of gas in Tanzania at Songo Songo, Kiliwani-North and Mnazi Bay. There is an under-utilised pipeline from the producing fields up to Dar-es- Salaam. A possible starting...

The 2017/18 East African Community budget will be relatively smaller compared to the current closing financial year owing to the current economic situation, regional ministers have decided. During the recent meeting of the Council of Ministers in Arusha, Tanzania, the bloc’s Secretary General, Amb. Libérat Mfumukeko, submitted a budget proposal for financial year 2017/18 amounting to $113.8 million compared to the current budget of $101.4 million. “Owing to the current economic situation, all partner states are experiencing rationalisation of their national budgets and, therefore, it would be difficult to increase contributions to the EAC Budget,” reads a report of the central decision-making organ of the Community. “The meeting, therefore, agreed to a zero per cent increase in partner states contributions to the 2017/18 Budget.” The Council observed that although there is no increase in the individual partner states’ contribution, countries’ total contribution will increase after including contribution from the Community’s new member, South Sudan. From May 22 to June 3, the final sitting of the third East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), in Arusha, Tanzania, will mainly debate the budget estimates as adopted by the Council. MP Patricia Hajabakiga, chairperson of EALA Rwanda Chapter, told The New Times that nothing much is likely to change. “Of course the budget voted by EALA cannot go beyond the ceiling provided by the partner states. It is only rationalising within what is already available,” Hajabakiga said. “In case some institution needs something and maybe some other institution has excess then they will rationalise within...

A newly designed short messaging service (SMS) for reporting trade barriers within the Tripartite regional economic blocs has been launched. The Tripartite Free Trade Area was launched in 2015 and encompasses three regional blocks; the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), the East African Community (EAC), and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa). The SMS tool will supplement the current web based online system for reporting, monitoring and elimination of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) used by Comesa, EAC and Sadc. According to a statement from the Comesa secretariat, the Tripartite online reporting system is a real-time mechanism for reporting, processing, monitoring and resolving trade barriers. It was operationalised in November 2010. “The online mechanism has been instrumental in assisting the region to understand the kind, frequency and category of NTBs that are encountered by economic operators as they are doing their business in the Tripartite region. These include road blocks, delays in processing export or import documentations, permits, et cetera,” the statement reads. The SMS tool has now been rolled out to Comesa member states as part of capacity building and empowerment to manage trade barriers and fast tracking their removal. Economic operators who encounter NTBs will be able to send an SMS to the central number which will in turn relay messages to identify focal point numbers and the current online reporting system. The SMS tool was first launched in 2013 in Zambia to facilitate a diverse spectrum of economic operators, especially the informal and small scale traders...

Kenya has suffered a blow in its effort to change East Africa's market access rules to allow duty-free sale of edible oil manufactured from imported raw material. Kenya, with the support of Burundi, has been pushing for the review of East Africa Community's rules of origin to give tax-free access to products even if imported raw material constitutes up to 70 per cent. At the moment, edible oils only enjoy duty-free access to member states if wholly made from locally grown oil seeds like palm, soya bean, sunflower or cotton. Kenya argues that preferential terms would safeguard the 9,000 direct jobs and $55 million worth of investments put in edible oil manufacturing across the region. A team of experts appointed by the bloc to review Kenya's case however warned that the region must keep its eye on the thousands of farmers who are likely to lose market if local firms get the free hand to import raw materials.  Source: All Africa

President Uhuru Kenyatta today said that one of his priority foreign policy objectives has been to see trade between African countries grow to a new higher level. He said he has promoted the integration of the East African region and advocated for increased collaboration between African nations. President Kenyatta, the Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces, spoke at the National Defence College in Karen, Nairobi. He said he promoted a structured process for the integration of the East African Community starting with economic integration. The President fielded questions from participants on the course, including officers from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Egypt and Nigeria. He said people-to-people movement, and easier movement of goods and services was at the heart of Africa building a prosperous future in which Africa’s security and prosperity was guaranteed. He said he wants to change the traditional trend where the economic interest of African countries ended at their own borders in relation to other nations on the continent while they trade extensively with overseas nations. National Defence College trainees he addressed were all above the rank of Colonel or corresponding ranks in other defence agencies. The President explained why he had devoted much time to East African integration, saying a wider market for goods in the region would attract greater attention of investors globally. He also said that exchange of good practises among Africans themselves was pivotal for Africa-led growth. He was responding to a Nigerian officer, who had said that Kenya should take lessons from countries like his...