Let’s enhance awareness on trade barriers

Opinion and Analysis

 

Kenya Revenue Authority commissioner-general John Njiraini speaks during the standard gauge railway project briefing in Nairobi in February 2015. FILE PHOTO | SALATON NJAU |   NATION MEDIA GROUP

By VICTOR BWIRE

Kenyan products continue to face several challenges especially in relation to market access.

This has frustrated traders and entrepreneurs; either because of poor marketing, inability to meet ...
required standards; lack of access to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) notifications by private sector and other public institutions, lack of institutional capacity of the inquiry points in meeting the standards in receiving the notifications and disseminating them to the relevant stakeholders, poor capacity for online linkages.

Other challenges include lack of dissemination of information to the private sector by Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) focal point.

In need, organisations such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) assisted by international agencies including the World Trade Organisation, and United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (Unido) have carried out campaigns to ensure products from Kenya access global markets but they are just a drop in the ocean.

It’s encouraging that the government, through Kebs, Kenya Plants and Health Inspectorate (Kephis) with support from Unido through the Standard and Market Access Programme (SMAP), has initiated a project aimed at enhancing market access and competitiveness of Kenya’s plant and animal-based products at home and abroad through greater adoption of relevant international standards and improved regulation and enforcement in Kenya.

Capacity

Interestingly the programme has a huge media and journalists training component as a key way of enhancing awareness rising on TBT-related issues, and food safety and food quality aspects, for the business community, private sector companies, consumer associations, political stakeholders, and the press.

The media is a key player and once equipped with the knowledge on such topics such as food safety and quality management systems, good agriculture practice, good hygiene practice, good manufacturing practice, good distribution practice, its expected that our journalists will assist the country in the sensitisation on key requirements in the global markets so that Kenyan products can penetrate.

The journalists will mainly be drawn from areas producing products for export. The bodies that are expected to play a critical role in building the capacity and expanding knowledge of the requirements have not done the optimum in assisting Kenya products to compete globally or even just the minimum standards expected by the external markets.

The business sector is expected to benefit from improved services rendered by inspection and conformity assessment bodies and better product quality, leading to increased access to regional and international markets