VENTURES AFRICA – East Africa, a region recognized as a successful global location for mobile payments and a thriving online space, is embracing technology advancement as part of its growth plan for diverse sectors. The newly recently launched East Africa Single Visa is intended to scale up tourist arrivals in EAC member states; Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. This multinational-travel certificate which costs $90 will grant tourists a 90-day validity period with no room for extension. Although termed as ‘long-haul destination’, one cannot stop wondering why, with massive cultural and natural resources, Africa continues to lag behind in recorded tourist visits. According to a report by the World Travel and Tourism Council, of the one Billion tourists who travelled in 2012, only 50 million were destined for Africa, where East Africa only managed to scoop 5 million (1 percent) of the bound-for-Africa travelers. “We need to re-package ourselves” quipped Waturi Matu-Coordinator for East African Tourism Platform in an interview with Jovago.com, a leading online hotel booking platform in Africa. Ms. Matu explains that this revamping process would start with the leadership, down to stakeholders and the African Media, “Africa has suffered blanket misconceptions for a long time. We are yet to carry ourselves from the gripping grief of the term ‘dark continent’. Africa needs to tell her own story, and let the world know that beyond the crisis (that exist in every other nation) there exists vast stretches of unique culture, wildlife, flora and fauna, business opportunities and untapped resources.” Having...

President Yoweri Museveni Wednesday sided with Uganda businessmen accusing Kenya of blocking their products from accessing the Kenyan market. Addressing the public during the launch of Hudani Manji Ltd, a chicken farm plant in Semuto Nakaseke District, about 50km from Kampala, President Museveni said refusal by Kenyan officials to allow Uganda goods into the country was in contravention of the East Africa Community protocol. He said he would petition President Uhuru Kenyatta on the issue. “We buy a lot of goods from Kenya. Some of those Kenya officials are ‘narrow-minded’. They wanted to block our sugar. Now they have gone for our chicken. If I say no more Kenya products to Uganda, they will be forced to buy,” President Museveni said. “I shall sort it out with President Uhuru Kenyatta,” he added. Two weeks ago, the Uganda Sugar Manufacturers Association accused Kenya of selectively blocking export of sugar, demanding full access to the market. “…sugar from other countries in SADC and Comesa who are not in the East African Community enters Kenya with ease. The Uganda sugar industry would want to know why,” Uganda Sugar Manufacturers Association chairman Jim Kabeho was quoted saying. President Museveni reacted after Hudani Manji Ltd chairman Alykhan Hudani complained of Kenya Revenue Authority officials blocking his firm from exporting chicken to Kenya. “Most of our chicks are imported from Kenya, they feed on Uganda-made feed, but they do not allow us to export to Kenya. We have invested a lot of money and there is...

Logistics in Africa is a menace, and firms that try to launch logistics businesses face a mamoth of hurdles from poor infrastructure to double insurance on both the goods and the machinery and the capex is way too high. East Africa is reported to have the highest freight and transport costs in the world; over 50% higher than the USA and Europe per kilometre. Indeed, transport costs for land locked countries in the region can be as high as 75% of the value of exports. Transit times have the most significant effect on exports and also result in firms having to carry higher levels of stocks making them less efficient. To solve this, a US$ 16 million challenge fund has been opened for innovators who can devise a strategy to crack the code into reducing the cost of transport and logistics in East Africa. The Logistics Innovation for Trade (LIFT) challenge fund will provide grants ranging from US$ 200,000 to US$ 750,000 to winning proposals from innovators from across the world but whose ideas will be implemented in East Africa. LIFT is managed by TradeMark Africa (TMA) Challenge Fund with funding support from UK-DFID; and seeks to trigger and introduce innovative approaches to tackling freight and transport costs in East Africa region. Successful LIFT project applicants will contribute to TMA objective of reducing transport time along the main East Africa transport corridors by 15% by 2016. TMA Senior Director, Business Competitiveness Lisa Karanja said, “Our desire is to see East...

A whooping $16 million (about Rwf11bn) fund has been set aside for innovators who can come up with effective strategies to cut costs on transport and logistics in East Africa. The competition, dubbed Logistics Innovation for Trade (LIFT), will provide grants ranging from $200,000 (about Rwf137m) to $750, 000 (about Rwf514m) to winning proposals from innovators from across the world but whose ideas will be implemented in East Africa. The challenge was launched yesterday in Nairobi, Kenya. Managed by Trade Mark East Africa, the challenge seeks to trigger and introduce innovative approaches to tackling freight and transport costs in East Africa which reportedly has the highest freight and transport costs in the world. Applicants are expected to devise strategies of reducing the time taken along the major East African transport corridors. The two major corridors are; the Northern Corridor, which links EAC countries to Mombasa Port, and the Central Corridor which connects to Dar-es- Salaam. TradeMark Africa’s Senior Director of Business Competitiveness Lisa Karanja said their desire was to see East Africa adopt world class logistical technologies to ably compete with the rest of the world. “It is a challenge to the private sector to develop and test new ideas that could reduce the cost and time of transport and logistics. TradeMark will co-invest with the private sector in projects that have the potential to achieve this but may be too risky to undertake without external support,” Karanja said. The organisation’s Challenge Fund manager, Isaac Njoroge, said the fund will...

As the East African community heads of state meet in Nairobi this week, Rwandans have no reason to wonder about the benefits of the body. Among the many benefits Rwanda has achieved from EAC integration is the Single Tourist Visa use and the Single Customs Territory (SCT),” Permanent Secretary, Ministry of East African Community Affair, Safari Innocent said while addressing the media. The SCT allows Rwandans to cross over to Kenya and Uganda using identity cards which is supporting trade between the countries, and the Single Tourist Visa allows tourists to move within the three countries with payment of 100$ which is supporting the tourism sector not only of the country but also of the region. According to the ministry of East African Affairs: “About 831,236 and more persons have used ID cards to travel to Uganda and Kenya since the use of IDs as travel documents prevailed and this means that movement of Rwandans across the borders was made easy which is boosting trade,” The SCT has reduced days spent during transportation of goods from Mombasa port to Kigali, from 21 days to 5 days which has reduced operation costs. The cost of hiring a truck to transport cargo from Mombasa to Kigali has reduced by about $1000 from $5200 in 2010 to $4200 in 2014. Rwanda has since January 2014- September issued over 1,529 tourist visas which shows a very big achievement for the country under the tourism sector. Since the establishment of the EAC Common Market Protocol...

Inconsistency in the East African region has resulted in talks around regulation in the trade and service industry. Earlier this week, Valentine Rugwabiza, minister of East African Community, discussed trade and policies in the region. One of the issues was access to customs systems between Rwanda and Kenya. Rwandan agents did not have access to Kenyan customs systems. While Kenyan agents had access to Rwandan customs systems. “The decision has made is that only 86 Rwanda agents have been nominated to clear cargo destined to Kenya and other transit cargo. The Rwanda regulatory authority will send their names to the Kenya Revenue Authority to have their bounds activated,” she said. There was also the consideration of Rwanda opening up a revolving account with shipping line authorities for easier business at sea ports. Rugwabiza also tackled the complaint that Rwandan truck drivers were being charged a road toll of 300 dollars, per truck, when crossing the Tanzania National Park. While Tanzanian trucks were only charged 40 dollars top cross the same road. “At the EAC level, on no tariff measures, we will raise this issue with the aim of having it either brought at 40 dollars as what is imposed to Tanzania and just the same treatment for east African businesses or remove it all together. But what we are aiming for here is just to have a level playing field,” added Rugwabiza. Source: CNBCAFRICA.COM

Kigali: The Ministry of East African Community (MINEAC) started a weeklong campaign and activities to fast track the integration process. According to a statement from the government, the activities focus on key achievements in the seven years since Rwanda joined the EAC, available opportunities, on-going projects and addressing questions and concerns of stakeholders on EAC(East African Community) Integration. The activities will also highlight future strategic priorities as well as awareness campaign on how Rwandans can benefit from the community, all under the theme “EAC Regional Integration: Benefit & Opportunities to update Rwandan citizens on 7 years of Rwanda in EAC”. Speaking to media about the East African Business Summit held in Kigali in October 2014, President Paul Kagame said that Rwanda has greatly benefited from the EAC. “Benefits from EAC Integration have multiplied in the seven years since Rwanda joined the EAC. Rwanda has benefited from EAC’s large market, challenges have been shared and addressed together, benefits have come from many sources and Rwanda has been much better in the last seven years”, he said. The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of East African Community, Innocent Safari, highlighted numerous benefits Rwanda enjoyed, saying that, “About $100 million has been invested in the country by investors from other partner states in the seven years since Rwanda joined the EAC. The use of Identity Cards for travel has eased free movements of people, goods and services between Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya.” Other successful projects that the East African Community embarked on include...

TANZANIA'S share of intra-regional trade in East African Community region has increased from 15 per cent in 2005 to 26 per cent by last year grossing over 1.5 billion US dollars, the government has said. The Permanent Secretary at Ministry of East African Cooperation, Joyce Mapunjo, told reporters in Dar es Salaam that the country's trade volume was only second to Kenya in the EAC region. Ms Mapunjo who was speaking to journalist on the forthcoming 16th EAC Summit due to be held in Kenyan capital, Nairobi later this month, pointed out that the country's exports include manufactured goods. "We are exporting steel bars, cooking oil, cement and textiles," she pointed out while stressing that EAC intraregional trade has increased from 317 million US dollars in 2005 to over 1.5 billion US dollars last year. "And the figure is increasing annually so I urge our businessmen to seize the opportunity and exploit the regional market," she argued. The EA Cooperation chief civil servant further noted that the government is doing everything to ensure that the local private sector is competitive. "We have addressed concerns over road blocks and now most of them are gone and by next year we will have only three weighbridges between Dar es Salaam and Nyakanazi border post," she noted. The Ministry's acting Director for Trade, Investment and Production, Bernard Haule said where necessary weigh-inmotion bridges will be deployed to check against notorious cargo truck owners who do not comply to load limitations on the roads....

EAST Africa is making significant progress in their economic integration agenda with a focus on trade and transport facilitation to improve its competitiveness. Heavy investments in road and railway infrastructure as well as modernization of port services are helping to boost intra-regional trade, the springboards for growth and prosperity in the region. However, a major undoing for the five partner states of the East African Community (EAC) - Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi - is the high costs of cross-border trade. Costs of trading to most of African countries are stubbornly high making it difficult for potential African exporters to compete in global and even in regional markets. Costs related to trading in the region are among the highest globally and are 50 per cent higher than in the United States and Europe, according to the World Bank. This is the result of gaps in infrastructure, lengthy border delays, red tape, poor regulation and lack of interconnectivity among systems used by the various government departments. It is even worse for landlocked countries of Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda with transport costs rising to 75 per cent of the value of exported goods. According to the 1999 World Bank Paper Infrastructure, Geographical Disadvantage and Transport costs, if East Africa reduced its transport costs by 10 per cent, trade could increase by more than 20 per cent. It is against this backdrop that the Burundian President, Pierre Nkurunziza urged for improved efficiency by customs and immigration officials at border posts to reduce...

The common tourist visa, was much applauded when launched a year ago at the World Travel Market 2013. It was then delayed by several weeks when the logistics were not in place on January 1, 2014. So how has the selling of this visa been doing since then? According to information received, sold less than 1,000 times since the system became operational, a figure which, if correct, and the source is not known to dish out fictional figures, would be disappointing. Two Ugandan safari operators confirmed also that the visa is only recommended by them to such clients actually traveling to all three countries, as the cost, when visiting only two countries, is the same and less bureaucratic. “Right now very few tourists actually have a three country itinerary. Two countries is more common, yes, but not all three. Those who visit three are still the exception. Therefore, the common visa does not make sense for them, and we only recommend it when it gives them a financial advantage. They pay once, but when crossing the borders they still have to queue at immigration and then show the page of the passport where the sticker has been put or they might risk being charged single visa fees. “What we need to do across East Africa, at least across the three countries which cooperate over the new visa, is to push for longer safaris and then cover the key attractions in each of them. How this will work we have to...