African governments have been working to establish a monetary union for the past several years, and the benefits of such a move cannot be overstated. By 2024, the East African Community will have unprecedented cross-border exchange that will revolutionise member economies and foreign investment prospects. The system will spare investors the headaches and expenses of currency conversion, and that improvement alone will make the region more attractive. However, the East African Community should heed the eurozone’s economic troubles as it works toward implementing its own monetary union. Greece defaulted on US$1.7-billion in debt it owed the International Monetary Fund in 2015, leading it to the brink of exiting the eurozone. It also provided a sobering example of what can go wrong in such an economic bloc. If the East African monetary union is to avoid such crises, its leaders must address the following concerns before 2024: 1. Macroeconomic Convergence Volatile foreign exchange and inflation trends should evoke concern about macroeconomic convergence in East Africa. Stark variances exist among the member states’ currencies, such as the Rwandan franc and the Ugandan and Tanzanian shillings, and there could be troublesome spillover among East African Community economies. However, some regional countries appear to be working together ahead of the monetary union. Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda recently created a single tourist visa that make it easier for international visitors to tour the three countries. This is aimed to bolster tourism and is geared to attract investors who see regional mobility improving. These three countries...

The 2015 Africa Tourism Monitor has uncovered that visa simplification schemes have the potential to further boost tourism revenue and job creation by between 5% and 25%, and thus far supporting visa facilitation initiatives, including e-visa and regional visa cooperation, have already led to immense economic benefits for countries that have adopted this approach. This revelation comes at a time when SADC states are preparing to expand the KAZA (Kavango Zambezi) visa, a common tourist visa developed by Zambia and Zimbabwe, which has been identified as the first step towards a SADC uni-visa. The Tourism Monitor published by the African Development Bank (AfDB), further indicates that the continental tourism sector is growing. The report attributes this growth to various initiatives aimed at boosting the industry which include the simplification of visa systems and regional cooperation mechanisms through the KAZA visa and East African Community (EAC) uni-visa. According to the report the African tourism sector grew by 4% in 2014, making it the second fastest- growing tourist destination (Southeast Asia grew by 6%). In 2014, a total of 65.3 million international tourists visited the continent, which is a significant leap from the 17.4million that visited the continent in 1990. Among the top five African countries for tourist arrivals were two SADC states South Africa in 3rd place and Zimbabwe in 5th place while Botswana topped Lonely Planet’s list of best places to visit in 2016, beating out countries such as The United States of America and Japan for first place. The...

Thinking of traversing Africa in search of trade and investment opportunities? You may need to consider what parts of the continent to focus on in terms of flexibility in travel and how visa-open the destination country is. According to the Africa Visa Openness Report 2016 published  by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the most visa-open countries are found in West Africa and East Africa. A massive 75 percent of countries in the top 20 most visa-open countries are in West Africa or East Africa. Surprisingly, only one in North Africa and none in Central Africa are in the top 20 most visa-open countries—underlining the challenges the continent faces in boosting its trade and investment profile. East Africa has the bulk (45 percent) of the top most visa-open countries including Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda. West Africa has the second largest cluster (30 percent) of the top most visa open countries including Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and Togo, according to the index. The Southern African bloc is ranked third in terms of visa openness in four countries that include Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique and Zambia. Seamless borders are no doubt a boon to trade and investment world over because of free movement labor, goods and capital. The fruits of an open visa policy have been supported by the formal adoption of the European Union (EU) Schengen Agreement in 1995 that abolished the EU’s internal borders, enabling passport-free movement across most of the bloc. The deal helped the...

KAMPALA. The Mutukula border post has finally been handed over to Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) after being turned into a modern facility.
However, the return on investment will be decided by how fast the $7.2m (Shs240b) facility clears cargo and facilitates trade and movement across the two border points of Uganda and Tanzania. Already, TradeMark Africa (TMA), one the funders of the Mutukula One Stop Border Post (OSBP), is expecting to see tremendous decline in time spent clearing goods. According to URA commissioner customs Dicksons Kateshumbwa, currently clearance at Mutukula border takes slightly more than one and a half days, in itself an achievement, considering it would take weeks if not months to clear a single consignment. But TMA country manager Allen Asiimwe, thinks the tax body can do more, saying the lesser time spent on navigating laborious custom bureaucracies—clearance, the better the business environment and the lesser the cost of doing business gets, making Uganda and the region attractive for trade and investment. Speaking during the handover of the facility last week in Mutukula, Ms Asiimwe, whose organisation injected $7.2m into the construction of the OSBP, said if time spent on clearing goods at the new facility drops to hours from currently slightly less than one and a half days, the result will be amazing.
When asked by how many hours they are looking at, TMA programme officer Damali Ssali, said: “We would like to see it being done in not more than six hours. This is achievable because we have...

The East African region is likely to face stiff competition from Southern Africa countries after members of three trade blocs that merged last year agreed to disregard sensitive products in order to ensure fair competition. The 26-member states forming the Tripartite Free Trade Area have agreed that 80 per cent of tariff lines will be liberalised upon implementation of the agreement in June and the remaining 20 per cent will be negotiated over five to eight years. TFTA brings together members of the East African Community, the Common Market for Southern and Eastern Africa and the South Africa Development Community. This is a reversal of the earlier agreement of having restrictions on the entry of the sensitive goods until 2017 to allow industries to adjust to the competition expected from cheaper products. This effectively opens the door for stiff competition for EAC goods from South Africa and Egyptian exports. Among the products earlier listed for protection were sugar, maize, cement, wheat, rice, textiles, milk and cream, meslin grain and flour, cane and beet sugar, khangas, kikois, kitenges, second-hand clothes, beverages, spirits, plastics, electronic equipment and paper materials. All these will be subject to duty and quota restrictions. “With an agreement to liberalise up to 80 per cent of the goods to other countries, each country or trading bloc like EAC will agree on what goods to liberalise and which ones not to,” said Mark Ogot, senior assistant director at Kenya’s Ministry of East African Affairs, Commerce and Tourism and a tripartite expert, adding that...

Trademark East Africa has launched six grants worth $2.5 million to fund the private sector. In the past, TMA focused mostly on funding government reforms, but now, deserving players in the private sector will also receive money to invest in storage infrastructure, provision of extension services to farmers, co-operatives, standardisation of products and linking producers with markets. For instance, in Uganda’s Gulu area, where there is mass production of sesame, cassava and maize, a logistics hub with warehouses will be constructed, while the Jinja-Kisumu Corridor will also benefit from a logistics hub to develop transport interconnection of the ferry, railway and road transport services. TMA will also facilitate the establishment of infrastructure to support fishing in Lake Victoria. These efforts are meant to improve the private sector’s capacity to utilise TMA’s investment in infrastructure development over the past six years during which the organisation gave governments in East Africa $340 million to remove trade barriers. Cost of doing business Allen Asiimwe, TMA country manager for Uganda, said that through the investments, EAC partner states have managed to reduce the cost of doing business, however there are concerns over the high cost of consumer goods. According to Ms Asiimwe, TMA’s interventions have reduced the cost of transporting a fuel container from Mombasa to Kampala from $4,000 to $1,750, but this has not resulted in lower pump prices. “Fuel traders blame the depreciating shilling and inflation for the failure to reduce price,” said Ms Asiimwe. TMA business competitiveness senior director Lisa Karanja...

Most of the tea produced in region sold at the Mombasa auction, the world’s largest market for the leaves EAST African tea exports to Iran are expected to jump more than fivefold by 2019 as trade ties with the Persian Gulf nation normalise after western sanctions were lifted, a regional tea traders’ association said. Shipments from nations including Kenya, the world’s biggest exporter of black tea, may climb to 20,000 metric tons within the next four years from a record low of 3,200 tons last year, said Edward Mudibo, managing director of the East African Trade Association. “The potential for the Iran market could be five-fold the current status without the restrictions there had been over the past five years,” Mudibo said in a phone interview Wednesday from the port city of Mombasa. Iran is among the world’s 10 biggest tea-consuming nations, with consumption estimated at 83,400 tons in 2013, according to Food and Agriculture Organisation statistics. Financial and trade sanctions imposed by the U.S. and European countries because of its nuclear program curbed access to foreign currency and limited Iranian buyers’ ability to transact. That posed “payment challenges” to East African tea exporters from Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, Mudibo said. Most of the tea produced in East Africa is sold at the Mombasa auction, the world’s largest market for the leaves. The weekly sale handled 358.6 million kilograms (791 million pounds) in 2015, compared with 390.2 million kilogrammes a year earlier, according to data compiled by Tea Brokers East...

KIGALI, Rwanda - The East Africa Tourism Platform (EATP), the regional tourism body, wants all the five East African member states to embrace inter and intra-regional tourism as something good for the East African Community (EAC).  “EATP is represented by each single stakeholder who is in the room; each one of you is an investor in EAC hence I urge you to collaborate, build bridges and strengthen the vision of EATP of a vibrant and diverse single tourism destination by providing exceptional experiences and products,” Manzi Kayihura, the  Chairman of EATP said recently. This was during an open discussion forum hosted by EATP to discuss on the vision of East Africa as a single tourism destination and the feasibility and viability of it. Participants in the two day forum were CEOs and Executive Directors of Private Sector Tourism Associations in the five East African countries, Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Tourism Boards in the East African Community member states were also invited as EATP fosters private/public sector collaboration in matters of tourism in the region.  These stakeholders were brought in as policy makers and influencers, and were gathered in the same room to discuss challenges and opportunities of developing tourism in EAC and promote it as a single destination. EATP challenged the participants to look beyond their differences and challenges at their national levels and rally their strength behind finding solutions to common problems. “Solutions will have to come from all of the five partner states, with a unified...

ARUSHA, TANZANIA - The East African Gender Equality and Development Bill, 2016 sailed through the First Reading in the East African Legislative Assembly last week writes ELISHA MAYALLAH. The object of the Bill is to make provision for gender equality, protection and development in the Community.  According to the mover of the Bill, Hon Nancy Abisai, the Partner States undertake in Article 6(d) of the Treaty for the Establishment of the EAC not to discriminate against any person on grounds of gender as one of the cornerstones of good governance. The Bill in addition spells out the principles of democracy, rule of law, accountability, social justice, equal opportunities as well as in the protection of human and people’s rights. The Bill accepts that women and men’s contribution in the integration process is fundamental as are the obligations of Partner States to their commitments under the various instruments and Protocols. However, emerging threats resulting from HIV and AIDS, globalization and human trafficking of women, men and children  as well as the feminization of poverty and gender based violence could impact negatively on their citizens. The Bill contends that whereas the Partner States have over the years recognized the importance of gender equality and have developed programmes and enacted legislation in this pursuit, these efforts are at different levels and certain differences particular to each Partner State.   As a result, gender initiatives affect women, men and children differently across the EAC. The Bill has been forwarded to the relevant Committee by...

In line with its mission and vision, the EATP, the East Africa Tourism Platform, hosted a forum for open discussions on the vision of East Africa as one tourism destination, and the feasibility and viability of this objective. The meeting took place at Elevate Suites in Kigali last week. Invited to the meeting were CEOs and executive directors of private sector tourism associations in the five East African countries, namely from Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Tourism boards in the East African Community member states were also invited to the meeting as EATP fosters private/public-sector collaboration in matters of tourism in the entire region. These stakeholders were invited in their respective capacities as policymakers and influencers to discuss challenges and opportunities of developing tourism in EAC and promoting it as a single destination. For two days, EATP challenged the participants to look beyond their differences and challenges at their national levels and rally their strengths behind finding solutions to common problems. Ms. Carmen Nibigira, the EATP Regional Coordinator, emphasized that solutions will have to come from all of the 5 partner states, with a unified vision and collaboration towards developing regional tourism. Ms. Nibigira hoped the forum gave each tourism stakeholder an opportunity to borrow a leaf from each other in their efforts to develop tourism in East Africa. The priorities which emerged from the 2-day forum that are common to the 5 countries were described as policy regulations, product development and marketing, skills development, and research. EATP called...