By IVAN R. MUGISHA
In Summary
- Tanzania has said that its decision on whether to sign a trade deal with the European Union will be known after Monday’s EAC Council of Ministers meeting in Arusha, as Burundi declared it will not sign since it still faces sanctions from the EU.
- Kenya and Rwanda caught their East Africa Community partners by surprise on Thursday when they signed the Economic Partnership Agreements in Brussels, the seat of the EU, just before the regional ministerial conference was to take a common position on the matter.
- Hours before Kenya and Rwanda signed the agreement, Uganda said it would sign too.
Tanzania has said that its decision on whether to sign a
trade deal with the European Union will be known after Monday’s EAC
Council of Ministers meeting in Arusha, as Burundi declared it will not
sign since it still faces sanctions from the EU.
“The government of Burundi will not sign the EPAs because the
EU stopped the partnership with Burundi,” said Minister of EAC Affairs
Leontine Nzeyimana.
Kenya and Rwanda caught their East Africa Community partners by
surprise on Thursday when they signed the Economic Partnership
Agreements in Brussels, the seat of the EU, just before the regional
ministerial conference was to take a common position on the matter.
Uganda has since said it will sign the agreements at the
ministerial council which will prepare the position to be taken by
presidents of the five partner states during a Summit starting September
9. The agreement can only be binding when ratified by all EAC members.
On Friday, Tanzania’s Minister for Industry, Trade and
Investment Charles Mwijage, said he was not aware of any change in the
country’s position.
He said he was travelling and he will comment upon return to Dar es salaam on Monday.
Mr Mwijage had told The EastAfrican in July that Dar es
Salaam would not sign the EPAs in its current form because it would
frustrate Tanzania’s budget, which relies heavily on import duty, and
hurt the country’s nascent industries.
Earlier, a Burundi government official had said the country was
to make its position known during the ministerial council after
overtures by Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto during a visit to
President Pierre Nkurunziza in July.
Tanzania led the rejection of the agreement two months ago,
saying its importance had been diluted by the exit of Britain from the
European Union in June. Uganda soon followed with President Yoweri
Museveni saying all concerns needed to be brought on board and
addressed. The agreement had been scheduled to be signed on July 18
during the Unctad meeting in Nairobi.
Hours before Kenya and Rwanda signed the agreement, Uganda said it would sign too.
“We have made up our mind. The EU market is very important to
us. It is actually our largest export market. We are going ahead to sign
the EPAs,” Uganda Trade Minister Amelia Kyambadde said on the sidelines
of the annual Co-operatives Sector Review Conference. It is understood
the three countries agreed to sign when their top officials met during
the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (Ticad) in
late August in Nairobi.
The deal is expected to ensure continued duty-free and
quota-free access to the EU for all EAC exports while in reciprocation
offering partial and gradual opening of the EAC market to EU imports.
Brexit effect
The EU ambassador to Rwanda, Michael Ryan, said the action by
Kenya and Rwanda was partial until all the five states were on board.
“Under the difficult political circumstances around the signing,
this is beginning to close up on the final phase of the signing and
ratification of the EPAs. We see significant momentum building up, so we
just have to wait and see,” Mr Ryan told The EastAfrican.
However, the signing persuaded the EU international trade
committee to propose that the EU parliament extend by four months the
deadline to change the status of Kenya’s access to the EU market.
The deadline had been set for September 30, meaning that from
next month, Kenyan imports would have been subject to duties, making
them less competitive.
“We convinced the EU parliament not to lock us out of
preferential terms and our request was agreed to. We will now take the
document to the Kenyan parliament for ratification so as to make it
legal,” Dr Chris Kiptoo, Kenya’s principal sectary at the
Industrialisation ministry told The EastAfrican from Brussels.
Kenya hopes the market access extension will be in force until the EPAs is ratified by all parties.
Kenya, as a developing country, cannot access the market under
the Everything But Arms provisions which is open for its EAC partners
who are categorised as least developing countries.
Rwanda is understood to have signed with the foresight that in a
decade or so it, Tanzania and Uganda will have graduated to a
developing country according to World Bank projections.
The EU accounts for 31 per cent of Kenya’s export market,
especially for cut flowers, tea, fresh vegetables and coffee. Kenya’s
total annual exports to the EU amount to about $2.47 billion. Tanzania’s
export to the EU was $1.18 billion while Uganda’s was at $547 million.
Rwanda’s was at $212.1 million.
“Kenya has the urgency to sign. It is through the deal that they
are able to safeguard their market access to EU under duty free
access,” said Emmanuel Hategeka, Rwanda’s permanent secretary for Trade
and Industry.
On the possibility of the EPAs being rendered useless for the
bloc if one country rejects the deal, Mr Hategeka said all countries
should be allowed enough time to assess before they commit to signing.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa has advised a
cautionary approach to the EPAs which have been labelled as unfair
across Africa.
“If the EPAs is not signed as a bloc, then one would hope that
the EU will extend its existing preferential market access rather than
start applying higher tariffs on African exports,” said Andrew Mold, the
East African head of United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
He said the difficulty in signing EPAs also arose from Brexit
which meant the deals no longer included the UK, a major trading partner
for African countries
Additional reporting by Allan Olingo, Moses Havyarima and Christopher Kidanka.
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