As the East Africa region grows fast in Africa, policies to promote transformation of transport to economic corridors should be put in place to facilitate more dynamic movements of people, goods, services and money.

Presenting the working paper on ‘Dynamism and Future prospects of Economic Corridors in the East African Region’, Chairperson for DAIMA Associates Limited, Prof Samuel Wangwe, said in the recent years new economic movements have emerged. “Growth poles which are an agglomeration of production, logistics and consumption centres have also emerged.

Those growth poles have been connected more deeply through transport corridors and by so doing those corridors have been transformed from simple transport corridors to economic corridors,” he noted. He said planning the corridor development and its surrounding area can maximise development benefits through engagement of public-private partnership for sustainability.

DAIMA Chairperson said prioritising economic potential available in transportation corridors should be given priority by creating friendly business and trade policies.

Expounding further he said through absorbing energies from Indian and Arabic world across the Indian Ocean, the region has witnessed more dynamic movements of people, goods, service and money along the economic corridors. As the corridor will not grow without doing anything, he said developing master plan to study them and growth poles was important.

The plan will assist in implementation of projects and executing the transformation of process. Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Senior Representative, Mr Amatsu Kuniaki, said they commissioned DAIMA Associates to produce the working paper with interest in looking at the new features of those transformations in the EAC region.

“EAC regional integration would inject dynamism into the EAC economies through economies of scale and more efficient deployment of factors of production,” he noted.

Mr Kuniaki said it was also important to develop the East Coast of the region by developing the ports of Lamu, Mombasa, Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam and Mtwara,” he said. He added that by developing new industrial complexes as in Tanzania’s Bagamoyo and Mtwara special economic zones.

Source: All Africa

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