JUBA, 20 June 2015 [Gurtong] - Hon. Racheal Nyadak Paul, Deputy Minister of Information and Broadcasting while addressing journalists after the council of ministers meeting on Friday said the council has agreed to join the EAC. “The Council resolved that joining the East Africa Community is a key interest to the people of South Sudan” said Nyadak. Nyadak added that the approval on the timeline on how the agreed project can be implemented will be discussed in the assembly which the council has agreed. “There will be a summit in October this year where possibility may be South Sudan can be a member of EAC” she said. The Deputy Minister said the council also had a briefing on the aspects of joining the EAC including discussions on the risks and benefits. “The council further discussed and resolved the need to sensitize the community on how important joining the community is and if there are risks they have to be discussed on how to come out of those risks” she said. “Already there are interests and there are gains or benefits of joining the East Africa Community” she said. In regards to obtaining a visa to the East African countries, she said “you don’t obtain your visa in Juba to travel to the East Africa like Kampala or Nairobi; you just get your visa at the airport whenever you feel like to travel. I think these are the good things that we have seen” she explains. Source: Gurtong

There is cause for celebration following the meeting in Cairo of 26 African heads of state representing the countries that make up the three major trading blocs on the continent — the East African Community, Southern African Development Community and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa — for the formalisation of the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) agreement. The leaders endorsed a five-year negotiated framework that establishes preferential tariffs to ease the movement of goods and traders in a region of 625 million people. The conference kick-started a process that will set up harmonised trade policies, the removal of trade barriers and a renewed promotion of trade facilitation. The momentum for intra-African trade is strong, with real benefits in increased trade, global competitiveness, employment and higher incomes for the region, and the culmination of the African Union action plan in 2012 to double intra-Africa trade and fast-track a continental free trade area. The main attraction at the Egyptian conference was the offer of 100 per cent liberalisation on tariff lines. Thereafter, no country should face higher tariffs under the new trade regime. Although there are more than a dozen overlapping regional trade arrangements of which only eight are recognised by the African Union, intra-Africa trade and investment has remained a distant goal with low trade volumes among countries partly due to the conflicting trade policies and a “bandwagon effect” brought about by corresponding membership in the different trading blocs. While the preceding trade arrangements in Africa were set...

Hopes for an African free trade agreement moved closer to reality when negotiations were launched in Johannesburg this week, with 2017 set for the conclusion of a treaty. But trade experts have cautioned that there is much to do before realising this ambitious target. The negotiations for a continental free trade agreement were launched at the African Union summit this week, and come off the back of the ratification of the smaller but significant tripartite free trade agreement in Egypt earlier this month. The tripartite agreement links three major regional blocs – the East African Community (EAC), the Southern African Development Community and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. Ongoing negotiations The tripartite agreement talks began in 2008 and, although the legal agreement has been concluded, further phased negotiations on protocols governing, among other things, competition, cross-border investment and intellectual property rights are still ongoing. With the signing of the tripartite agreement, however, the dream of a continental agreement is no longer as distant as it once seemed, according to Wolfe Braude, the founder of research consultancy firm Emet Consulting. “We are now on the road towards continental economic unity,” he said, but warned that the timelines were ambitious. Once completed, the continental agreement would link 54 countries, with a combined gross domestic product of $3-trillion, and could raise intra-African trade by 52% by 2022, according to the AU Commission. Braude said the AU wanted to conduct back-to-back negotiations with the tripartite agreement, which could be useful because...

26 EAC-COMESA-SADC zone members to produce for market of 630 million people Africa’s largest free trade area comprising 26 countries has been endorsed and is now expected to take off in 2017 following the signing of the long-awaited agreement on June 10. It includes the East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), and the Southern African Development Cooperation (SADC). The signing, which followed negotiations of almost four years, took place in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh. It was signed by six heads of State, five vice presidents, two prime ministers and 13 plenipotentiaries. Amelia Kyambadde, the minister of trade, industry and cooperatives signed on behalf of Uganda. The tripartite free trade area (TFTA), which has been hailed as an ‘historic’ moment for Africa, will cover countries stretching from Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea Coast in the north of the continent to South Africa’s Cape Coast in the south. It will however skip South Sudan, which does not yet belong to any of the three regional blocs. There is hope that the trade zone will offer significant opportunities for business and investment within the three blocs and will act as a magnet for attracting direct foreign investment in the region. The business community in particular, would benefit from an improved and harmonized trade regime, which reduces the cost of doing business as a result of the elimination of overlapping trade regimes. Jane Nalunga, the Uganda country director for the Southern and...

June 20, 2015 (JUBA) – South Sudan’s council of ministers on Friday approved the country’s bid to join the East African Community (EAC), but insisted its government needed five years to sensitise citizens on the benefits and risks of becoming a member. The council, during its weekly meeting chaired by president Salva Kiir, reportedly listened to memo presented by the presidential advisor and economic affairs, Aggrey Tisa Sabuni. “We have to sensitize our people on the risks of joining the community as well informing them on the benefits that the citizens of South Sudan are going to gain,” the deputy information minister, Racheal Nyadak told reporters in the country’s capital, Juba. Sabuni, who co-chaired the government of South Sudan team on joining the five-member regional body, told the council of ministers that the new nation could benefit from joining the EAC, which currently comprises of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda. “If you are a south Sudanese, you are African and once have pay fees like Kenyans or Ugandans citizens because they are not foreigners,” Nyadak quoted Sabuni to have said. South Sudan applied for EAC membership soon after gaining it’s independence from neighbouring Sudan in 2011. However, the young nation’s admission to the bloc delayed as member countries cited poor governance and its underdeveloped public institutions. Although South Sudan could be admitted to the EAC at its October summit, Nyadak said cabinet’s resolution would see the young nation maintain observer status for five years. The resolution to join the...

The launch of the Tripartite Free Trade Area after 16 member states signed the text, is a momentous accomplishment. One day, when the intended free trade area has become fact, those then enjoying the benefits of inter-continental trade, will hail their forefathers for their insight and vision to have started the project in 2015. As I stated last week, the free trade area is a noble idea, however, it is only an idea. One can not talk of unrestricted trade aposteriori when there is no trade apriori. And this is what I argued, - there is a reason why intra-African trade is so exceedingly modest. It is because there are very few linkages that can carry the trade (goods), and very limited institutional and statutory convergence that can support trade (services), across the territories and the jurisdictions. Africa as a whole is fragmented, under-capitalised and sorely lacking in infrastructure that connects us to our neighbours in any meaningful way, at least in such a way to serve even a small fraction of the envisaged common market of 620 million people.As such, the major obstacles are infrastructural and it will require massive (in the superlative) capital investment over decades, to change conditions.In the 12 days since the Tripartite Free Trade Area was launched, more expert eyes had opportunity to peruse the text of the agreement. This brought to light some very significant legal and statutory challenges, in addition to my perceived infrastructure deficit, that will all take time to unravel, and...

In June 2014, Africa—the most fragmented Continent in the world—took a decisive step towards regional economic integration with the signing, in Charm El Sheikh, of a free trade agreement that opened the way for a vast common market uniting twenty-six countries from Cairo to Cape Town. This new Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA), which took five years of negotiations, is the result of a merger of three regional organizations: the Southern African Developmental Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC), and the Common Market for Easter and Southern Africa (COMESA). The Tripartite, which includes nearly half of the Continent’s countries and population, constitutes the largest area of free trade ever established in Africa. While the agreement’s major promoters—South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mauritius—unanimously welcomed the trade negotiations’ successful conclusion, the signing of this agreement does, however, raise questions about the global dynamics of regional integration in Africa. Implicitly, the Tripartite profoundly underscores the deep fracture lines that cross the Continent. Indeed, the creation of a large English-speaking Eastern economic block made some observers fear the resurgence of  “block logic” almost thirty years after the end of the Cold War. Facing off against the Atlantic facade and Francophone Africa—which still suffers from chronic fragmentation—the new integrated economic area may generate a two-speed African economy, with all potential tensions that it carries. In the East, people and goods would circulate freely and smoothly. In the Western part, since barriers fell only gradually, talent and capital would flee towards the Tripartite.  Thus, the danger...

Business leaders from around the world gathered in Cape Town last week at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa under the theme, Then and Now: Reimagining Africa's Future. According to Charles Brewer, Managing Director of DHL Express Sub-Saharan Africa, the forum’s theme could not be more fitting given the rise of Africa over the last few decades. Whilst participating in various panel discussions at the conference, Brewer said that despite Africa being one of the last frontiers for economic growth and development, leaders need to urgently determine the best approach for the continent going forward and work hard to implement it. To ensure that Africa is equipped to maintain and exceed its current growth trajectory, business leaders, government and the community need to work together towards making Africa easier to do business with. He says that a strong growth engine for the continent is the rise in small and medium enterprises (SMEs.) “The region offers plenty of untapped opportunities, which pave the way for SMEs to fill the gaps not presently being catered for by larger corporations. Manufacturing, on a large scale, is still somewhat embryonic in Africa and as such, there is a definite opportunity for SMEs that operate in the manufacturing industry.” Having set up in Africa in 1978, DHL is today present in every African country and territory and the company is very familiar with the continent’s unique challenges and characteristics. Brewer says that the biggest game changer for Africa going forward will be its ability...

Somalilandsun - Despite the major distraction of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's visit, African Union (AU) leaders took important decisions at their summit which ended on Monday, including a big one towards financial independence They also adopted the first ten-year plan to implement the ambitious Agenda 2063 initiative to uplift the continent, and launched negotiations for a Continental Free Trade Agreement, which would liberate trade across all of Africa. And they took steps to try to bring peace to various persistent conflicts on the continent and to combat growing terrorism, from Boko Haram in West Africa, through Al Qaeda in the Sahel via Islamic State in Libya to Al-Shabaab in the east. South African officials have hailed in particular the agreement to scale up financial contributions from member states, so that the AU can fund 100% of its operations, 75% of its programmes and 25% of its peace and security activities. The aim is to make the AU more independent of foreign donors who still provide about 60% of the overall budget. To help them meet their greater obligations, the AU has proposed a basket of alternative sources of funding to its members, including levies and taxes on air fares, smses, oil and other natural resources. But however they pay, the members will have to pay more, also because of the added costs of big AU initiatives like Agenda 2063. Their contributions will be based roughly on the size of their economies. So South Africa will be in the top tier...

Promoting intra-regional trade has long been a priority item for African policymakers.  Over time, regional integration arrangements have proliferated all over the continent, often creating a confusing mixture of overlapping, sometimes incompatible, preferential trade regimes.  The Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA), which was officially launched on June 10, goes some way towards addressing these issues by bringing together three of Africa’s major regional economic communities—the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC), and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). Over the last few decades, several initiatives to boost intra-regional trade have been undertaken by the three regional economic communities that are now coalescing to form the TFTA. While it is difficult to determine actual impact of those trade expansion efforts on regional trade flows, available data show that merchandise exports among the members of this new FTA have steadily increased from $2.3 billion to $36 billion between 1994 and 2014—more than a 12-fold increase over 20 years. Over that period, the share of intra-regional trade in total exports increased from 7 percent to 25 percent.  While these shares are low compared to European (70 percent) or Asian (50 percent) standards, the trend clearly suggests that trade among the Tripartite members grew faster than their trade with the rest of the world. Regional officials believe that the TFTA could accelerate this trend by further stimulating intra-regional trade. The launch of the TFTA has not received as much media coverage as the ongoing negotiations of the...