EAC trade under threat from India and China

A client buys medicine at a chemist in Meru town on June 8, 2017. PHOTO | PHOEBE OKALL | NMG

By JAMES ANYANZWA

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Summary

• According to the 2017 report on EAC’s competitiveness, India is exporting mainly heavy petroleum and medicine to the region while China is selling a wide range of manufactured goods including clothes and footwear, and telecommunications equipment.

Cheaper imports from Asia, Europe and the US are eating into East Africa’s intra-regional trade, with Kenya — previously supplying 90 per cent of medicine in the EAC— losing out to India.

According to the 2017 report on EAC’s competitiveness, India is exporting mainly heavy petroleum and medicine to the region while China is selling a wide range of manufactured goods including clothes and footwear, and telecommunications equipment.

China, Japan, South Africa and India have taken up a higher market share in the region for iron and steel products than the EAC partner states put together.

Uganda has been the top export destination for Kenyan goods, followed by the Netherlands, US, UK, Pakistan and Tanzania. However, latest data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistic (KNBS) shows that Pakistan has taken the top position, followed by Uganda, the Netherlands, US, UK and Tanzania.

“We have lost the market but we are still important to each other as EAC member states” Kenya’s Trade Principal Sec