Opinion and Analysis
Rwanda president Paul Kagame says opening up of the country’s borders
for free movement of labour and trade with Kenya has been beneficial.
PHOTO | CYRIL NDEGEYA
By BETTY MAINA
As the EAC Heads of State gathered in Nairobi at the
weekend both for the infrastructure retreat and the Heads of State
Summit one can only look back at the progress with optimism for the
future.
Looking at the journey that was and still is, a lot of great
effort has gone into the integration process for the region. The treaty
for the Establishment of the East African Community was signed on
November 30, 1999.
It set a vision for the eventual unification of the
EAC Partner States and outlines a comprehensive system of co-operation
among Partner States in trade, investments and industrial development,
monetary and fiscal policy, infrastructure and services, human
resources, science and technology, free movement of factors of
production, agriculture and food security, environment and natural
resources management, tourism and wildlife management.
The first stage of the EAC integration came with
enforcement of the EAC Customs Union Protocol in January 2005 which had
five years transitional period for elimination of internal tariffs.
The benefits of the Customs Union to the businesses
are level playing field due to implementation of Common External Tariff
against imports from third countries entering EAC, increased
utilisation of production capacities due to larger EAC market that was
to some extent protected by the Common External Tariff (CET) and
increased market opportunities in the EAC.
Economies of scale
Businesses have been able to increase their competitiveness due to economies of scale and production efficiency.
Benefits abound but challenges are in the right
of residence framework in that the citizen of a Partner State can only
reside in the territory of another Partner state if he/or she is engaged
in economic activity and when one stays for a long time, one is not
guaranteed permanent residence.
In the area of free movement of services, partner
states agreed to start with seven sectors mainly professional and
business, communication, distribution, education services, financial
services, tourism, travel related services and transport.
Kenya opened up its services sector since 2010 to
other partner states adopted a progressive liberalisation between 2010
and 2015.
There is a need to have strong regional law and
policies governing trade in services. Manufacturers appeal to Partner
States to fasten re-aligning their national laws with the Common market
Protocol in order for the region to reap full benefits.
The writer is the chief executive of Kenya Association of Manufacturers.
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