Obama targets EAC for big increase in trade

 

Containers at the port of Mombasa. Obama's plan aims to cut by 15 per cent the average time for shipping a container to or from the ports of Mombasa or Dar es Salaam to land-locked Rwanda or Burundi. Photo/FILE  NATION MEDIA GROUP

By KEVIN J KELLEY New York

President Obama will on Monday announce a move to double trade within the East African Community and to boost the EAC’s exports to the United States.

“The EAC is an economic success story,” declares a fact sheet issued by the White House in advance of Mr Obama’s announcement.

The five EAC member-states have “increasingly stable and pro-business regulations,” the fact sheet adds.

“They are home to promising local enterprises that are forming creative partnerships with multinational companies. And EAC countries are benefiting from the emergence of an educated, globalised middle class.”

Mr Obama’s initiative, called Trade Africa, aims to double trade among EAC members while increasing their total exports to the US by 40 per cent.

The plan also aims to cut by 15 per cent the average time for shipping a container to or from the ports of Mombasa or Dar es Salaam to land-locked Rwanda or Burundi, the White House says.

A 30 per cent decrease is also sought in the average time it takes a lorry to pass through EAC countries’ borders.

Trade Africa is the second plan providing significant benefits for Kenya that Mr Obama has announced in the past two days. He said on Sunday in South Africa that Kenya is among six black African countries chosen to take part in a $7billion electricity-generation effort intended to light 20 million homes and businesses in the next five years.

The version of the trade project outlined by the White House includes no specific new funding commitments by the United States. It is also vague on how the trade-enhancement goals are to be met.