KIGALI, Rwanda – Rwanda’s Ministry of East African Community held the third MINEAC-Private sector breakfast meeting to review the challenges that business people face when using the Central Corridor to and from Dar es Salaam.

Present were leading businessmen and women from different companies and sectors that range from transport, logistics, export-import, mining, manufacturing, freight forwarders and shippers who predominately use the central corridor for business.

“The Central Corridor is very important for Rwanda’s trade as it accounts for over 60% of the regional trade and therefore all initiatives aimed at improving the central corridor will have a direct impact on transport costs, and competitiveness thus contribute to the reduction of cost of doing business in Rwanda,” Rwanda’s Minister of East African Community Affairs, Amb. Valentine Rugwabiza said.

The Minister was speaking during the meeting that focused mainly on “Accelerating the removal of Non-Tariff Barriers along the central corridor”, held last week in Kigali.

“This is why last month our leaders came together in Dar-es-Salaam to focus precisely on those two things, how to improve efficiency on the Central corridor and how to work together (governments and business people) to develop the Central corridor,” Rugwabiza said.

The Central Corridor is a trade and transport corridor which covers the United Republic of Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Tanzania.

“The largest part of the Central corridor is in the United Republic of Tanzania and therefore this is why Tanzania is needed to do a lot in terms of improving the efficiency and developing the corridor but this also calls for working together to make sure that each member state is making its contribution as per commitments made in last month’s summit,” Rugwabiza said.

“Rwanda being a landlocked country, transports costs generally accounts for over 40% of the price of goods and this is clearly an impact on the country’s competitiveness as an economy. This is why the government of Rwanda is working very closely with sister countries especially on the Northern corridor to address this issue,” the Minister said.

Rwanda’s private sector continues to report a number of NTBs which include among others existing several weighbridges stations, weighing of empty trucks and other transport related challenges such as insecurity, unrecognized standards by the United Republic of Tanzania. Others include customs mainly on the Tanzania side where there is lack of access rights, multiple tormented customs system, regionalization of national bonds, automation, low speed and continuous failures, harmonization of licensing, cumbersome of licensing procedures, 24/7 working hours at Rusumo and Dar es- Salaam port , the immigration challenge among others.

While significant progress has been made with regards to elimination of NTBs, EAC Partner States should accelerate the implementation of trade facilitation measures and reduction of remaining national and regional NTBs to ensure that EAC fully benefits to the maximum possible extent from multilateral trade liberalization.

Reducing the time and cost losses to exporters and importers is thus paramount to Rwanda’s increased regional integration and trade facilitation, but also to sustaining growth in the long run.

From the first ever Central Corridor Presidential Roundtable and Investor Forum held in Dar es- Salaam March 2015, a number of commitments were made to help make the corridor more functional. “Among these was the construction of the Standard Gauge Railway from Dar es Salaam to Rwanda, Burundi, DRC and Uganda and this will be launched in June 2015.

Other commitments involved are expansion of the port of Dar es- Salaam, development of new inland container away from the city centre to decongest the port and boost efficiency among others,” Rugwabiza said.

A number of trade facilitation measures along the Central corridor aimed at making it easier to trade across borders have also been implemented among which is the single customs territory which was launched in June, 2014 and since August, 2014 Rwanda deployed its customs officials at Dar es-Salaam Port, transit time has been reduced from 10 to 6 days from Dar es-Salaam to Kigali, weighbridges reduced in Tanzania to 7 from 8, police road blocks reduced from 53 roadblocks in 2010 to 8 in 2014 among others.

Minister Rugwabiza said, “Government of Rwanda through the Ministry of East African Community seeks to deepen its engagement with the private sector to jointly assess the opportunities and challenges on both the Northern and Central corridor”.

The 3rd breakfast meeting therefore focused on the new opportunities that can be exploited as well as the elimination of NTBs along the Central corridor with a view to unlock any existing challenges.

The minister said the different suggestion put up in the meeting were underway, promising the privates sector good outcomes. EAC will hold another meeting this week in Arusha where the minister will be able to first have bilateral engagement with her counterpart in Tanzania to see how to address most of the challenges.

Source: East African Business Week

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