Last December, amid two days of fanfare, a new long-haul 787 passenger route was launched from Durban, South Africa. The four-times-per-week service was hailed by local provincial officials as a triumph for the region and would begin “opening up new markets for our goods around the world,” as well as delivering tourists and tourist money, to the continent. And which carrier is now facilitating this foreign trade boom? Qatar Airways, based not in Africa, but in the Middle Eastern city of Doha. It says much about the state of the African airfreight industry that a new Doha-Durban route, with ample bellyfreight capacity, is owned by a foreign carrier – especially one from the Middle East. Qatar now has 21 flights a week to South Africa from its Doha hub. Nowthat’s an open market. For most of the last decade, the surge in cargo traffic that has made Africa one of the world’s fastest-growing airfreight markets has been dominated by carriers based in the Gulf Region, China and Europe. One of the few exceptions is Ethiopian Airlines, a rare African carrier that has a substantial cargo division modeled on the global airfreight networks of its foreign rivals. “Foreign carriers account for 85 percent of the traffic moved to and from the continent and have far significant advantages compared to African carriers,” said Sanjeev Gadhia, CEO of Kenyan all-cargo carrier Astral Aviation. The reason, Gadhia said, is a lack of liberalization in the aviation policies of most African nations. While foreign-operated international...

The African Union’s Commissioner for Trade and Industry Fatima Acyl has called for structural transformation to create jobs that will improve the wellbeing of the African people. Ms Acyl, who was speaking at a meeting in Addis last week, before the African Union summit, said the backbone of the AU’s industrial transformation plan is the African Mining Vision, and the creation of a Continental Free Trade Area. The mining vision, adopted by the Heads of State Summit in 2009, aims to make the mining sector more responsive to African economic and social development needs. “If you don’t transform, there will be a lot of importing of products that you have,’’ Ms Acyl said. She gave the example of her own country, Chad, which imports juices yet is a top grower of mangoes. The goal is to set up a free trade area by 2017. The AU has already approved the creation of an African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC) to provide strategic operational and co-ordination support to member states. The goal of the AMDC is to address price volatility, and to ensure stable incomes to African producers. Ms Acyl noted that many of the AU’s 54 member countries have populations lower than 20 million and economies of less than $10 million. The national markets of such economies are therefore too small to justify heavy investments. The establishment of a continental Free Trade Area will create a single market for goods and services in Africa with a total population of over a...

The regional business community has criticised the EAC Elimination of Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade Bill 2015, saying it needs extensive changes in order to be effective. The East African Business Council (EABC) has pointed out that elimination of NTBs is strictly dependent on the political will of the concerned parties, with no consequence for non-elimination and no restitution for aggrieved parties. To address this, EABC trade economist Adrian Njau proposes that the NTBs Act be taken back to the East African Legislative Assembly for amendment. Mr Njau argues that the Bill should provide for an alternative dispute resolution mechanism, arbitration by the trade remedies committee and the ability to petition the East African Court of Justice. The Bill insists merely restates the existing mechanisms to resolve disputes on non-tariff barriers in the region such as mutual agreement of the concerned partner states; implementation of the EAC time bound programme for elimination of identified NTBs; and regulations, directives, decisions or recommendations of the council as provided for under Article 9 on elimination of NTBs despite its failure to resolve disputes for several years now. However, the extension in 2015 of the jurisdiction of the EACJ, to cover issues related to trade and commerce, provides another opportunity for arbitration of NTBs in the region. “The EAC NTBs Bill, 2015, should be taken back to EALA for amendments,” EABC acting executive director, Lilian Awinja told The EastAfrican. Tanzania is said to have already assented to the Bill, meaning that it has formally committed itself to a binding legislation to eliminate NTBs...

Considerable economic success in Rwanda and the larger bloc of the East African Community (EAC) is attractive for American investors and the US government is focused on supporting stronger partnerships between US investors and members of the private sector in Rwanda and the rest of the EAC. The message was delivered in Kigali, yesterday, by US Secretary for Commerce Penny Pritzker during a business roundtable at Village Urugwiro that brought together business leaders from the US business and East Africa. Pritzker, who led a delegation of 13 members of the US President's Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa and African CEOs, spoke highly of the economic achievements in Rwanda and EAC."Rwanda and the East African Community have a lot to offer US investors. East Africa is the most integrated and fastest-growing regional economic community in Africa," she said. She hailed Rwanda's efforts and success in facilitating businesses as well as the country's stable economic growth since 2000 - at an average of 8 per cent - and called for stronger ties between the country's traders and those from the US. "We are focused on steps the US government can take to support the establishment of stronger and lasting commercial partnerships between the US and the African private sectors, especially regions and countries where there have been considerable economic success and Rwanda is a prime example of this. From a commercial perspective, Rwanda's climb in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business is notable," she said. Under its Doing Business...

East African Community (EAC) member States will benefit from a Sh41 billion funding to fast-track three key areas critical to regional integration. The inter-governmental agreement concluded in Arusha between the German government and the regional bloc will support economic integration, regional health and water resource management over the next three years. The funding is as a result of realization that integration is still faced with key hurdles that need to be overcome despite available opportunities. Key challenges include inadequate and poor regional infrastructure network, water scarcity and difficulty in managing shared water resources, weak institutions and human capacity, insecurity and political instability. Other challenges are diversity across the economies and divergent country attitudes towards regional integration. Part of the funds (10 million euros) will be invested in the establishment of a regional network of reference laboratories for communicable diseases. Another 10 million euros will be used for integrated water resource management of Lake Victoria, aimed at improving water provision and management of water resources. Source: Media Max

Uganda has long enjoyed a well-earned reputation for co-operatives banking and commercialization of Agricultural Commodities and in recent years it has become a leading hub for commodities trade such as grains, cotton, coffee, cocoa and other soft commodities Following remarks by President Museveni about the added values on Cocoa product during his campaign in Bundibugyo, he was very optimistic about the development of Cocoa value chain as usual leaving out the challenge that Uganda cocoa low production cannot attract big investors from major importers. The total land area suitable for cocoa growing in Uganda is estimated to be 92,000 ha. However, according to the UBOS statistical abstract of 2011, the land area planted with cocoa is 21,198 ha of which 6,054 have mature productive cocoa plantation and 11,790 ha are covered by young cocoa planted under the strategic export innovations with estimated total country production of 28-30 thousand metric tonnes per year. Cocoa is grown in the sub- Saharan countries of west and eastern Africa that include DR Congo, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Uganda. Uganda has long enjoyed a well-earned reputation for co-operatives banking and commercialisation of Agricultural Commodities and in recent years it has become a leading hub for commodities trade such as grains, cotton, coffee, cocoa  and other soft commodities in East Africa with over four hundred registered companies involved in this Agricultural global market. It has involved into being one of the world’s leading Agricultural crop producing places in East Africa, for other additional trading...

Uganda's earnings from fish exports continue to grow, but it is a long road ahead before the sector can enjoy a substantial share of the country's GDP as the coffee industry does, writes Brian Ssenoga.

In a bid to boost fish trade and personal incomes among women in Uganda, women fish farmers, processors, traders and scientists have formed an umbrella organization called the Women fish network Uganda, attracting more than 100 members. According to Elizabeth Ssempebwa, the chairperson and proprietor of Kiteezi mixed farm, the network was established to help women seize opportunities in the fisheries sector, which is dominated by men. “We are not here to compete with anybody; neither are we saying we shall just look on as opportunities pass by. But the fact is women have been left out yet if you observe carefully, fish trade is mainly dominated by women who at the same time are marginalized,” she told The Observer at the organisation’s offices at Lugogo last week. The organisation comes at a time when Uganda’s fish exports are declining in terms of volumes. According to a statistical abstract from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, dated October 2015, Uganda exported 17,597 tonnes of fish in 2014, down from the 20,087 tonnes in 2013. However, in terms of value, the figures were better. Fish exports fetched Uganda $134.7m in 2014, up from $126.7m in 2013. Such earnings managed to boost the sector’s significance as a percentage of Uganda’s gross domestic product. According to Ubos, fish export earnings...

LAST June, 26 African countries signed the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) agreement that, when implemented, will constitute about half of Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP), half its population and cover a combined land mass of 17-million square kilometres — about the size of Russia. The countries, with a combined GDP of about $1.3-trillion and a population of 565-million, will merge into a common market and eliminate tariff lines and trade barriers. They will benefit from liberalised intraregional trade, which is expected to boost the flow of goods and services. Today, however, only three of Africa’s eight regional economic communities are participating in the TFTA. Nonparticipating economic blocs include the Arab Maghreb Union, the Economic Community of West African States, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the Economic Community of Central African States and the Community of Sahel-Saharan States. The Abuja Treaty of 1995, signed by 51 African countries, mandates all regional economic communities to join the group by 2017 in anticipation of an African Economic Community by 2028. "The conditions (to form the TFTA) have never been better," says Sindiso Ndema Ngwenya, the secretary-general of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa). "We have improved governance, and the very fact that we withstood the global financial crisis of 2008 attests to sound macroeconomic policies. This is what is giving us resilience." The benefits of the free trade area are numerous. "It has the potential to increase economies of scale through integration, will increase demand for the region’s goods...

East African single tourist visa has been hailed as the most progressive visa regulation in Africa, But Uganda’s tourist minister has raised a red flag over what she terms as other countries signed to the treaty not honoring the agreement fully. According to The Observer, Maria Mutagamba said the number of tourists visiting the landlocked country have dropped since the single East African tourist visa system was introduced because Kenya and Rwanda are still using their local tourist visa. “We embraced it wholeheartedly, but our brothers and sisters in the two countries while they introduced the East African visa, they also maintained their local tourist visa,” Matagamba said, adding that Uganda was planning to reintroduce its local tourist visa too. Under the tripartite agreement know as “Coalition of Willing”, the three countries were supposed to stop issuing local tourists visas and adopt the $100 multi-entry visa that would allow tourists to access the three East African countries within 90 days using one visa. Tanzania and Burundi, which are also member of the East African Community did not join the other three. “The tourism sector is agitated. They say; ‘we must have our own tourism visa as Uganda’ so that we can also get our tourists coming here directly until we all agree that we are going to have one (tourist visa),” Matagamba said. There were worries that Uganda would not benefit from the Schengen visa-like agreement since Kenya and Rwanda normally attract more tourists. “For us (Uganda) to benefit from...

The Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS), a public institution in charge of undertaking measures for quality controls on imports and promoting standardization in industry and commerce, has recently started a campaign to dismiss all sub-standard products that are outstanding in the local market. The announcement was done by TBS Director General Joseph Masikitiko, whom explained that the government is closely working with local authorities to seize all products that don’t meet the country’s standards. Used rubber tires are among the main sub-standard products imported by Tanzania and it is proved that they are one of the main factors of motor accidents in the country, reason why the TBS will specially focus on foreign shipments to analyse them before they enter the market, Mr. Masikitiko added. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tanzania has become one of the main importers of used rubber tires in Africa ranking in the 11th position totaling USD 4.69 million in 2013 up from USD 0.91 million in 2008. In addition, petroleum products will be also strongly surveilled since in December, 2015, the TBS rejected 38,000 metric tonnes of gasoline sub-standard product, reason why the shipment was sent back to United Arab Emirates (UAE) from Dar es Salaam port due to unacceptable elements found in the analysis, stressed Mr. Masikitiko. Petroleum Products constitute the main group of imports to Tanzania accounting for 36.15% of the country’s total imports and 93.4% of mineral imports in 2013 according to the MIT. Companies importing petroleum products that...