President Yoweri Museveni is in Dar es Salaam to inspect improvements on Tanzania’s main port so that it can be used as an option for Uganda’s exports and imports. According to Augustine Mahiga, the Tanzania Minister for Foreign Affairs,  Museveni’s visit to the Dar es Salaam port was to encourage Ugandan businessmen to resume using the port as an alternative to the Mombasa port in Kenya. Museveni is set to inspect improvements at the port that serves landlocked countries of Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Mahiga said Tanzanian President John Magufuli invited Museveni to visit when they met in Addis Ababa during the African Union heads of state and government summit last month. Museveni and Magufuli will also hold talks aimed at cementing bilateral relations and cooperation in business, energy, transportation and good neighborhood. Uganda last year opted out of the planned Kenyan route for oil, and went for the Hoima-Tanga pipeline route as the best option citing least tariffs to transporting the crude to the coast for export. The pipeline is to traverse about 1450km from Hoima in western Uganda to the Tanzania port of Tanga on the Indian Ocean coast. Total E&P Uganda will construct the $4 billion crude oil pipeline. The pipeline is expected to transport 230,000 barrels of crude oil per day to Tanga for shipment to the international market. Improvements are also ongoing to improve the rail route from the Tanzanian ports to the rest of East Africa. Source: Nigeria Today

Uganda President, Yoweri Museveni, arrives in the country tomorrow for a two-day state visit, to explore various potential areas of bilateral economic partnership, among them, the improved cargo clearance at the Dar es Salaam Port. President Museveni will also hold talks with his host, President John Magufuli on the East African Common Market as well as the ongoing project for the construction of the 1,443-kilometre pipeline to transport crude oil from Hoima in Uganda to Tanga Port, among others. Mr Museveni's visit further aims at strengthening bilateral relations between Tanzania and Uganda as well as discussing various regional and international matters, areas of cooperation between the two countries including energy, business and infrastructure amongst others, according to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, Dr Augustine Mahiga Addressing a news conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday, Dr Mahiga said a plane carrying the Ugandan leader will touch down at the Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA) tomorrow at around 9:00a.m. "The president and his delegation, on the first day of the visit to the country, will take a short breather after leaving the JNIA at Dar es Salaam's Serena Hotel before heading for the State House where Mr Museveni will be received by Dr Magufuli for a closed door meeting," Dr Mahiga said. Later in the day, President Magufuli and his guest will hold yet another open meeting that will be attended by top leaders from both countries that will be followed by a State Banquet for Mr Museveni hosted...

East African customs authorities have adopted an electronic system to track lorries travelling between Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda to speed up journeys. The trackers will allow officials and traders to monitor trucks travelling to and from the Kenyan port of Mombasa. A device will be attached to vehicles and is intended to help prevent hijacks and goods being tampered with. Uganda, which pioneered the project, says journey times could be cut from three-and-a-half days to just 36 hours. Detours detected The geo-mapping, known as the Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking (RECT), will apply to the main road stretching from Mombasa port to the Rwandan capital, Kigali, known as the "Northern Corridor". Officials will be able to monitor journeys on a map and be able to immediately detect any detours. About 90% of goods through the region are transported by road with the risk of cargo being targeted by criminals. Customs officials say drivers have also been known to take diversions and siphon off freight, for example offloading coffee and adding stones to make up the missing weight. "There has always been that unpredictable aspect of not knowing whether your goods will reach or they won't reach and that in itself is a very serious discomfort, now this will resolve that problem," Kassim Omar, chairman of the Association of Clearing and Forwarding Agents in Uganda, told the BBC at the launch in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. "The level of assurance guarantees the buyer abroad or the supplier from this end that what...

The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has today launched three customs trade facilitation programmes that will improve the ease of doing business in Uganda and the East African Community, and also promote trade and Investment. The trade facilitation programmes funded by Trade Mark East Africa (TMA) will be used to monitor transit cargo under customs control in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. The Trade Mark East Africa funded URA innovation aims to ease trade facilitation through a centralized Document Processing Centre (DPC), Introduction of a Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System (RECTS) and accreditation of new Authorized Economic Operators (AEOS). Minister of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives Amelia Kyambadde, joined by Evelyn Anite the State Minister of Finance for Investment and Privatization, launched the services at the URA headquarters in Nakawa, Kampala on Friday. They were joined by URA Commissioner General Doris Akol , World Custon Organisaition Director Compliance Anna Brigette and officials of Trade Mark East Africa (TMA), a not-for profit established to support the growth of regional and international trade in East Africa. "Our dream of being the model tax body is starting to bear fruits. RECTS and other innovations ensure better trade facilitation," said URA's Akol at the launch. RECTS is a web-based integrated system that will be used to monitor transit cargo under customs control in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Previously, each country operated a separate national cargo tracking system. According to officials, this posed challenges like lack of complete transit monitoring mechanisms leading to cases of dumping, delayed bond...

As the elections for the nine representatives to the East Africa regional body’s Parliament draw near, the candidates are spending most of the time at Parliament trying to solicit their support. There are six candidates from NRM, the ruling party, one from the Forum for the Democratic Change, one from UPC, one from DP and over 30 independents. As the elections EALA draw near, the candidates are spending most of the time at Parliament trying to solicit their support. As the elections for the nine representatives to the East Africa regional body’s Parliament draw near, the candidates are spending most of the time at Parliament trying to solicit their support. There are six candidates from NRM, the ruling party, one from the Forum for the Democratic Change, one from UPC, one from DP and over 30 independents. Janet Kenyangi Kikwaya (Independent) At 24, she is the youngest in the race Q: What motivated you to contest for the EALA seat? I have always been involved right from primary three at Margaret Preparatory School up to Senior Six at Kyeizooba Girls Secondary School. I look at politics as way of serving people.  Q: What do think has been lacking in EALA and which value would you intend to add there? EALA has signed a lot of protocols on peace and security, integration, non-tariff barriers; however, most of the protocols signed are not implemented. I will make sure that all the protocols and policies signed are implemented as well as deepening integration among...

GENEVA –An international agreement forecast to boost global trade by $1 trillion (£800bn) a year has come into force. The Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Roberto Azevedo, called it "the biggest reform of global trade in a generation". The Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) involves streamlining customs procedures. Mr Azevedo said it would have a bigger impact than eliminating all existing taxes on imports, known as tariffs. It involves countries signing up to a long list of reforms, including easier access for businesses to information, reduced fees and simpler and faster procedures. WTO economists estimated it would cut the cost of trading by 14.3%, and that developing nations would gain the most. TFA is one of the few successes of a much wider set of negotiations that were launched in late 2001 in the Qatari capital and known as the Doha Round. It is not the only product of the Doha Round, but most of the negotiating agenda ran into the sand. The TFA was finally agreed at a meeting in Bali 2013, but could not come into force until 110 countries had ratified it. That is what has now happened. Mr Azevedo said the agreement would boost global trade by up to $1 trillion a year. This development comes at a time when there is increasing uncertainty about the outlook for the agenda of increasing trade liberalisation that the WTO embodies. The new US President Donald Trump wants to renegotiate the country's trade agreement with Canada and...

The WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) has entered into force, with supporters hailing it as the greatest single achievement in the organisation’s history. The ratification is a timely boost for free trade advocates, at a time when the populist protectionist rhetoric of US President Donald Trump has been dominating the debate. The TFA has been under discussion since 1996 and has been awaiting ratification since 2013. The process was slow, but at last, the WTO has a ratified agreement. The TFA standardises customs procedures among WTO member states, cutting costs and reducing the time it takes to export and import goods. The WTO forecasts that it will slash trade costs for members by 14.3% on average, boosting global trade by up to US$1tn per year. A 2015 study by the WTO estimates that the TFA would reduce time to market for imports by a day and a half, and two days for exports. This is a reduction of 47% and 91% for imports and exports, respectively. The study says that TFA will add 2.7% a year to world export growth up to 2030. This would equate to 0.5% of global GDP – a huge boost at a time when global trade growth is stagnating and the benefits of globalisation are under scrutiny. The TFA passed the required threshold of 110 members when Chad, Jordan, Oman and Rwanda submitted their instruments of acceptance, and the general consensus is that by streamlining trade facilitation, the developing world will be the biggest winner. “This would boost global trade by...

Mombasa — The East African Community (EAC) has reminded election monitoring bodies and media organisations in partner states to use its treaty in line with their respective countries' legal frameworks when managing and covering elections to maintain free and fair polls. The regional bloc has principles for election observation and evaluation based on among others, its treaty. The principles are based on international standards, Union Charter on Human Peoples' Rights and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. The regional body made the statement during a three-day capacity building workshop for election monitoring bodies and other stakeholders to assess fairness of the political space and campaign playing field through media monitoring. Funded by the European Union (EU), the workshop is expected to equip stakeholders with full knowledge and skill in using media to get a firsthand and at glance assessment information in regard to political space and campaign playing field fairness. "Use the treaty as reference in the course of making the elections free and fair in the region," EAC's Deputy Secretary General (Political Federation), Mr Charles Njoroge, said yesterday. He pointed out that the media plays an indispensable role in the proper functioning of a democracy, and within an electoral context, the media is expected to play a transparency "watchdog" role. "If the media's role is vital in the normal course of events, exceptional periods such as elections can put its impartiality and objectivity to harsh test," he argued. Mr Gerard Guedegbe, media training expert based in Benin,...

The inefficiency of our public transport infrastructure, on which our neighbouring states of Uganda and Rwanda also depend, has long been a national embarrassment. For many years now, we have been told that it took a much shorter time to ship goods to the Port of Mombasa from manufacturing centres in the Far East, than to deliver these goods by road from Mombasa to Malaba on the Kenya-Uganda border. Now that “the trains have arrived”, which will run on the brand new standard gauge railway, all this embarrassment will supposedly soon end. This SGR project, however, is not universally celebrated. Eminent critics insist that there has never been a greater white elephant in all of East and Central Africa. And that it is something of an economic crime to burden the country with such massive debt, when there will be so little direct economic benefits to be received from this SGR. I have no strong opinion either way on this. But what I do know is that the ultimate value of giant infrastructure projects is to be found not so much in the project itself, but in the “multiplier effects” that should follow. The Kenya-Uganda railway, for example, was built back in 1900 primarily to “open up the interior” of East Africa: to facilitate the establishment of a modern agricultural economy through the arrival of “White Settlers” who would carve out of the African Savannah large plantations for growing the valuable cash crops of the day. This was very successful....

The American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) has entered into a partnership agreement with the East Africa Trade and Investment Hub to ensure best-in-class manufacturing of goods destined for the US market from East Africa. Signed yesterday (21 February) in Las Vegas, the agreement launches the 'East Africa Cotton, Textile and Apparel Initiative' to establish sustainable workforce development programmes and institutionalise environmental, social, labour and worker safety best practices in the region. The aim is to work with East African governments to raise industry standards, promote job creation, and increase trade and investment. US retailers and East African businesses are expected to both benefit from the initiative. The Hub, a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) organisation, will work to help East African governments and private sector entities institutionalise the best practices and standards that US apparel, footwear, and travel goods sourcing companies require. It is hoping to support the creation of 45,000 jobs across Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda in the first three years of the initiative, as well as creating jobs and further growth in the US apparel, footwear, and travel goods sector. Meanwhile, the AAFA says it will actively engage in advocacy activities before country governments in East Africa and lead private sector engagement. It will also "strengthen US manufacturing and support US jobs and economic growth" for its brands while encouraging companies and their suppliers to develop sustainable operations in East Africa. East Africa is establishing itself as a key sourcing destination for global apparel,...