Central Corridor member states are finding it difficult to attract private investors to finance prioritised infrastructure projects because of the huge financial outlay and the delayed return on investment involved. This puts the governments under pressure to either finance the projects from their budgets, or mobilise donors to fund the activities. These financing issues were raised last week during the 4th Central Corridor Transit Transport Facilitation Agency (CCTTFA) regional task force meeting to review the Presidential Round Table (PRT) resolutions and finalisation of an implementation plan. “What private investors want is to put money in projects that make quick returns, but projects like railways are long term and this is partly why the private sector is shunning these projects,” said George Rukara, Assistant Commissioner of Water and Rail Transport Regulation in Uganda’s Ministry of Works and Transport. The five Central Corridor member states are Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Unlike Tanzania, the other Central Corridor members are landlocked and any efforts to access to the sea would facilitate trade. Drawing funds from their coffers would strain regional governments given that some have a tight budget for domestic expenditure and the Central Corridor projects have not been included in this year’s fiscal budget. Member states have the huge task of securing funds to finance more than 10 new joint development projects that have been prioritised and will be jointly owned and funded. The projects are to enhance intra-regional trade by lowering the cost of doing business...

The tax bodies of the region have rolled out a scheme to consolidate gains from local Customs incentives in order to increase import revenues and minimise trade bottlenecks faced by business people while clearing goods. The Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) scheme allows accredited firms to enjoy shorter turnaround times for clearing goods at border points across the region and faster verification checks, according to officials. Local AEO schemes offer faster Customs clearing procedures to gazetted firms within national borders. Leveraging efficiency gains By leveraging the efficiency gains generated by the Single Customs Territory arrangement rolled out in February 2013, regional AEO firms could register Customs turnaround times of one day on certain trade routes compared with the current three-and-a-half days, sources said. Richard Kamajugo, a trade and Customs expert based at Trademark East Africa said:“For example, cargo consignments between Kampala and Katuna border station will take less than a day for beneficiaries.” Over the medium term, businesses should post higher profits due to the cost-saving thus effected. The AEO model is the brainchild of the World Customs Organisation, which offers incentives to importers and exporters for the purpose of improving tax compliance, increasing revenues from Customs transactions and boosting efficiency levels among beneficiary companies. After nearly three years of preparation, 13 pioneer firms were awarded regional AEO status last month, with revenue officials citing delays in resolving tax-related queries concerning selected businesses as a major challenge during the vetting process. Eligible firms were selected from the pool of existing local...

Sun City, South Africa - The recently launched African free trade area can succeed only if it is backed by good credit insurance that covers payment risk as well as political and country risk. This is according to Gregory Nosworthy, managing director of Euler Hermes, the credit trade insurer and subsidiary of German insurer Allianz that opened its South African office in May this year. The Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) was launched in Egypt in June this year by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community. The three blocs bring together 26 countries with a population of around 625 million people and GDP of $1.6 trillion. Nosworthy told a media briefing at the Insurance Conference: Africa Rising 2015, held at Sun City this week, that trade between African countries had increased by 300 percent over the past 10 years, albeit from a low base. Euler Hermes underwrites $102 billion worth of trade between TFTA countries at present. Nosworthy says the most important risk to underwrite is payment risk to ensure that an exporter of goods receives payment once the goods have reached a customer in another country. The second risk to underwrite is country and political risk, which covers factors that could prevent a company from taking goods into or out of a country, most notably conflict or political upheaval, but also developments such as the outbreak of Ebola. Euler Hermes currently underwrites 860 billion euros worth of...

The recently launched African free trade area can succeed only if it is backed by good credit insurance that covers payment risk as well as political and country risk. This is according to Gregory Nosworthy, managing director of Euler Hermes, the credit trade insurer and subsidiary of German insurer Allianz that opened its South African office in May this year. The Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) was launched in Egypt in June this year by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community. The three blocs bring together 26 countries with a population of around 625 million people and GDP of $1,6 trillion. Nosworthy told a media briefing at the Insurance Conference, Africa Rising 2015, held at Sun City this week that trade between African countries had increased by 300 percent over the past 10 years, albeit from a low base. Euler Hermes underwrites $102 billion worth of trade between TFTA countries at present. Nosworthy says the most important risk to underwrite is payment risk to ensure that an exporter of goods receives payment once the goods have reached a customer in another country. The second risk to underwrite is country and political risk, which covers factors that could prevent a company from taking goods into or out of a country, most notably conflict or political upheaval, but also developments such as the outbreak of Ebola. Euler Hermes currently underwrites 860 billion Euros worth of global trade. Source: The Citizen

“The biggest markets for your goods are often right next door. You don’t have to just look overseas for growth, you can look internally…it shouldn’t be harder for African countries to trade with each other than it is for you to trade with Europe and America,” he said. Obama was delivering a keynote speech to the African Union in Addis Ababa, the first sitting US president to address the body since its foundation in 2001. The speech capped off a five-day trip to Kenya and Ethiopia. According to UN figures, the share of intra-African trade in Africa’s total trade over the past decade was only about 11%, compared to 70% for Europe. In response, Obama said that the US would step up efforts to encourage regional integration, building on previous US assistance in modernising customs and border crossings in the East African Community. The president also highlighted US efforts in battling corruption, tackling illicit capital flows and building power capacity on the continent. Obama praised African countries that have torn down barriers to investment, but argued that much more needs to be done to spark business growth on the continent. “In many places in Africa, it’s still too hard to start a venture, still too hard to build a business,” he said. Obama said that the United States stands ready to assist African nations who intend to “make doing business easier” and called for an increase in US trade efforts on the continent. “I want Africans and Americans doing more...

Dar es Salaam — After a long and strenuous tussle among 28 members of the Euro Zone on the economic bailout of their 29th member-state based in Athens, the people of Greece finally secured what can be equated to pulling a meat chunk from the Lion's teeth. Three months on, their economic life had come to the brink of total collapse. Bank doors had been shut leaving clients with limited daily ATM cash withdrawals. People had literally to choose between food and medicine. The banks are now open. Thanks to the European Central Bank (ECB) decision to provide the country with an additional Seven Billion Euro bailout after reaching an agreement within the zone. Without having to recount the painful process that Athens had to go through, it would be proper for the governments and people constituting the current East African Community bloc to read the Euro Zone developments between the lines to enable their integration deliver the goods. For, what really matters at the end of the day would be the state of well-being of the people rather than the individual governments in power at the material time. Governments change but the people remain. To the emerging economic blocs, particularly on the African continent, the EU has been something to model themselves upon. Some EU members have actually been supporting the formatting of these blocs, including the current East African Community. Now here we were. The EU centre seemed could no longer hold. Athens reached the stage of not...

Uganda seems to have jumped late into the pool in the race to create zones that can enable her manufacturers gain a competitive advantage in the bid to promote her exports. However, this should not be seen as a disadvantage but rather as an advantage because she will be able to copy and aquire best practices and also skirt the errors made by her sisters in the East African Community (EAC) Kenya and Tanzania . In this case, I refer to the creation of Zones demarcated by governmnent authorities as free from import and export duties on raw materials and exports. For a long time, the biggest hurdle to industrial production is the cost of doing business. This comes in the form of taxes on raw materials and machinery and also taxes on export of the finished product. This has now been adressed in the free zone arrangement. This free zone thing, incidentally, is not a new phoenomenon, having started decades ago with the earliest known free zone being The Shannon Free Zone in Ireland, established in 1958. One cannot help wonder why this had not been implemented sooner. Many East African businessmen have been facing tough competition from producers who have had better incentives and infrastructure in more developed economies. With the free zones, an industry is guaranteed both less cost of doing business and a better, well laid out infrastructure like access roads, good water and power lines. Since ultimately the entrepreneur aims at producing for export, the...

KAMPALA, Uganda - Over 4,000 urban women traders and 400 light processors all over Uganda are slated to benefit from a US$ 500,000 Trademark East Africa and and Uganda Women Entrepreneurs Association Limited (UWEAL) joint venture project This was revealed during the official launch of Women in Trade (WIT) project that was held in kikuubo downtown Kampala organized UWEAL in partnership with TMA to boost women business in Uganda. Speaking at the launch, the Minister for Trade, Amelia Kyambade advised women to join business groups as a way of encountering challenges they face while doing business.Trademark EastAfrica boosts Women business. According to Amelia, women who join groups are more informed and able to solve business problems like how to manage their finances and how to find market for their goods. “Women are naturally perceived as weak by men, normally people think they can cheat you because you are a woman and there is nothing that you can do about it. But when you are part of a strong group like UWEAL behind you, you are assured of that kind of support. That is why I encouraged all of you to spare some time and money and join these groups because in the end, it’s you who gains from it” Hon. Kyambadde said. She also asked women to stop being shy while airing out their problems because no one is going to hurt them if they are talking the truth. According to her, women are more powerful ideologically and economically compared...

Minister of Industry and Trade Mounir Fakhri Abdel Nour has announced plans to launch a website serving the Egyptian businessmen who search for investment opportunities in Africa. Chairman of the ministry’s Commercial Service Ali El-Leithy said the website will contain data on African markets of interest to Egyptian businessmen. Outstanding companies, insurance opportunities, customs duties, shipping options and costs, and locations of Egyptian commercial representation offices will be available on the planned website, including tenders put up by African governments, according to Leithy. The website may also feature market studies about goods and trading sectors within each African country, as well as a given country’s most important exports and imports and its trade agreements with Egypt. It will also announce exhibitions hosted by African countries. It is worth mentioning that Egypt, in June, hosted the inking of a free trade agreement between Africa’s biggest economic blocs, the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (EAC). Source: State information service

African Trade ministers Monday informally converged in Nairobi to prepare for the 10th World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial conference slated for December. Speaking at the meeting at a Nairobi hotel, Foreign affairs secretary Amina Mohamed said the informal meeting of African trade ministers is set to brainstorm on the issues on the table for the ministerial conference. Some of the issues on the table according to Ms Mohamed include agriculture, market access, industrial growth and public health among others. The (WTO) ministerial conference, is expected to bring together over 6000 participants to discuss issues of concern in Africa’s trade relations. “I believe you will all readily agree with me that our common objective is to turn the Nairobi Ministerial Conference into a forum for harvesting specific outcomes particularly with respect to the coming into force of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and an agreement on a balanced and ambitious Post-Bali Work Programme,” said Ms Mohamed. She said it is important that African countries practice value addition on their raw materials before export. ADD VALUE “We want to be able to add value on goods in our country so that we do not export jobs to other countries, we do not want to open up our markets so much and reduce chances of us industrializing,” Ms Mohammed said. Speaking at the same meeting the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretary General, Dr Mukhisa Kituyi called on African governments to slow down on commodity exports. “Slowing down on commodity...