Govt firm on EAC trade bloc: G Terry

ANTHONY TAMBWE

THE government has been on the frontline in working with the private sector in the country to enable local investors to compete in the East African Community market.

This was said yesterday in Dar es Salaam by the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) Director of Advocacy, Gilliad Terry, during a meeting of public and private stakeholders in the investment sector. He said that the meeting was convened to discuss success and challenges experienced in the private sector and come up with clear policies to front to the government for implementation.

“The meeting will assess progress in implementing key trade and commitments to facilitate investments the Partner States made in respect of the EAC Common Market Protocol … it will also focus on selected issues such as freedom of movement of goods, services and capital,” he said.

He further explained that the TPSF would come up with an overview of current implementation progress of Tanzania’s commitments to the EAC Common Market Protocol– plus another on progress in non-EAC Partner States.

Mr Terry said that recommendations will be made on the required strategic reforms that will help accelerate implementation of the protocol in Tanzania and the rest of the EAC Partner States. The Protocol establishing the EAC Common Market was sealed effective 1 July 2010, following ratification by all the five Partner States.

“The EAC ‘Common Market’ seeks to integrate the markets from all the partners into a single trading bloc, in which there’s free movement of persons, labour, goods, services and capital; and the right of establishment and residence,” said Terry.

He said that with the fifth phase government striving to turn Tanzania into a more industrialised economy, more efforts need to be pumped into the private sector and ensure that the common EAC market is stable so that Tanzanian goods can reach over 150 million people found in the EAC bloc.

He added that with Tanzania being the leading agricultural nation in the EAC, the common market, if stabilized, will help move agricultural produce and boost the country’s economy.