East African Community countries flags fly at a past EAC investment
forum. The secretariat will start vetting South Sudan, which may join
the bloc in April. FILE
By CHRISTABEL LIGAMI Special Correspondent
In Summary
- Regional integration programmes at the ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam and key border posts along the Northern and Central Corridors are expected to benefit from the fund.
The East African Community has received a grant of $29 million from the US government to support regional integration projects.
The fund, a part of US President Barack Obama’s
Trade Africa Initiative, will be used to improve efficiency. The United
States Agency for International Development (USAid) will channel the
money through TradeMark East Africa.
“The deal will advance common goals of increasing
trade within East Africa by reducing the time and cost of transporting
goods,” said TradeMark chief executive Frank Matsaert.
Regional integration programmes at the ports of
Mombasa and Dar es Salaam and key border posts along the Northern and
Central Corridors are expected to benefit from the fund.
Joseph Atonga, the Kenya Ports Authority general
manager, engineering services, said the money will be used to expand
access roads and implement the proposed single window system.
The project is meant to link the Customs systems
of all five EAC member countries, allowing for the collection of import
duty on goods at the first point of entry, thereby improving tax
collection and the movement of goods.
Poor infrastructure
Due to poor infrastructure, freight costs per
kilometre in East Africa are more than 50 per cent higher than in the US
and Europe. In landlocked countries, transport charges can be as high
as 45 per cent of the value of exports and exports.
“By reducing the time and cost of moving goods and
services across borders, intra-regional trade within the East African
Community as well as US-EAC trade and investment will improve,” said the
assistant US trade representative for Africa, Florizelle Liser.
In July 2013, President Obama announced the US
Trade Africa Initiative, a new partnership between the US and
sub-Saharan Africa that seeks to increase trade within the East African
Community and expand trade and economic ties between Africa, the US and
other global markets.
Studies indicate that reducing barriers to
cross-border trade in the region will result in a 15 per cent cut in the
average time to import or export a container from Mombasa or Dar es
Salaam to Burundi and Rwanda, and a 30 per cent decrease in the average
time a truck takes to cross selected borders.
Additional reporting by Daniel Nyassy
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