The East African Tourist Visa has a greater impact on promoting regional markets compared to international ones, according to the joint marketing tourism committee under the Northern Corridor Integration projects. The three East African Community (EAC) partner states launched a single tourist visa in February, last year, which allows tourists roaming the three partner states to travel freely without seeking any other travel document or paying more. The visa was meant to open the region to travellers from around the world and help boost tourism in the region marketed as one destination. However, according to officials in the marketing committee, the visa initiative, coupled with a tripartite arrangement between Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda to have citizens of the three countries use identity cards as travel documents, has led to a sharp rise in the rate of regional clients as opposed to those from international markets. Reacting to the development, Yamina Karitanyi, the head of tourism and conservation at Rwanda Development Board, said regional markets were more predictable and sustainable compared to international markets given the trend of travel advisories that have targeted the countries in the region. Kenya has been subject to travel advisories by a number of countries such as Britain and Australia following terrorist attacks. The latest attack by militants al Shabaab on an institution of higher learning in the north-eastern part of the country left 148 people dead and scores injured. “Domestic and regional tourism has gone up in the region, which has also had a positive...

Arusha — The 31st Meeting of the East African Community Council of Ministers is underway at the EAC Headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. The Council of Ministers meeting is being held through the Sessions of the Senior officials from Monday 27 to Tuesday 28 April 2015, the Session of the Co-ordination Committee i.e. Permanent/Principal Secretaries on Wednesday 29 April, and the Ministerial Session is on Thursday 30 April 2015. The Council of Ministers meeting is considering several issues, including the operationalization of the East African Parliamentary Institute (EAPI), the initiation of policy-oriented Bills by the Council for purposes of enactment of such legislation to support institutional development and the effective implementation of integration programmes and activities, and progress report on the negotiations for the Republic of the South Sudan to join the East African Community. The Council will also consider items in the infrastructure, productive and Social Sectors, human resource matters and those pertaining to Organs and Institutions of the Community. Source: All Africa

The council of Ministers of the East African Community (EAC) will this week meet in Arusha, Tanzania, with the status of negotiations regarding South Sudan's application to join the community expected to be among the top issues on the agenda. The council meetings are attended by the ministers responsible for EAC affairs of each partner state. This week's meeting, which opened yesterday and runs until Thursday, is the 31st ordinary meeting of the council. It normally takes place in three sessions beginning with that of senior officials of the EAC followed by that of EAC permanent secretaries before climaxing with the ministers' meetings that mainly considers key issues forwarded by their technical officials. Innocent Safari, the permanent secretary at Rwanda's Ministry of East African Affairs, told The New Times, yesterday, that the status of negotiations regarding South Sudan's application to join the EAC as a sixth member will be one of the key issues for the council to consider. The Republic of South Sudan, which is currently embroiled in a contest for political power between President Salva Kiir's government and rebels loyal to his former deputy Riek Machar, applied to join the EAC on June 10, 2011. The EAC Council of Ministers then established a high level negotiation team to negotiate the country's entry into the Community, a process that was initiated by the South Sudanese government delegation appointed by President Kiir on March 13, last year. In November, last year, the South Sudanese delegation met the Secretary General of...

The Asia-Africa Summit has been taking place in Jakarta over the past few days, with government officials from over 100 countries taking part. High-level dignitaries attending the event have included Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and Indian Minister Sushma Swaraj, as well as heavy hitters from the smaller nations of both regions. Themed “The Realization of the Asia-Africa Partnership for Progress”, calls were made to push for reform of the global economic architecture, this included implied criticism of the World Bank, IMF and Asian Development Bank, with suggestions that they had done little to deal with issues both in Asia and certainly in Africa. Noting that China’s weight in the IMF was the same as a medium-sized European country, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee stated that such institutions no longer reflected the true world order and welcomed China’s recent plans for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Source: Asean Briefing

Burundi, the smallest and poorest of the five East African Community countries, is on the edge of a chasm. Barely 48 hours after President Pierre Nkurunziza launched his “re-election” campaign, police executed two demonstrators and injured dozens more. Their crime was exercising their freedom of expression and right to assemble and associate freely. If media reports are anything to go by, these killings are just the beginning of a bloody campaign period. Mr Nkurunziza’s unapologetic and seemingly violent bid for a third term is disturbing. First, it smacks of the big-man syndrome, which “legitimises” total disregard of the supremacy of the constitution. Second, Burundians who have witnessed genocide twice before, in 1972 and 1993, are so scared that thousands have already crossed over into neighbouring Rwanda. Third, those seeking refuge in Rwanda are the majority Tutsi, an unfortunate reminder of the circumstances that led to the worst genocide in human history. RISING TENSIONS Burundians and Rwandans in the US argue that it is just a matter of time before tensions start rising between the two neighbours over the ethnic divide and the materially opposing ruling elite on either side of the border. Mr Nkurunziza is an ethnic Hutu while his Rwandan counterpart, Mr Paul Kagame, is a Tutsi. Both leaders have rebel backgrounds but their leadership styles are totally different. Burundians fear that President Kagame may be compelled to intervene and in the process plunge the two countries into a conflict pitting Tutsis against Hutus. With memories of the 1994...

President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania told public and private stakeholders that the “Government of Tanzania welcomes private-sector participation in the new standard gauge railway (SGR) from the port of Dar-es-Salaam to Isaka and onward to Kigali in Rwanda and Musongati in Burundi”. He said his government also welcomes private-sector investments in toll roads where traffic volumes will offer meaningful returns for the private sector. President Kikwete was speaking to project developers and potential financiers, development finance institutions (DFIs) including the African Development Bank (AfDB) gathered at the Julius Nyerere International Conference Center (JNICC) in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania on March 26 for the Central Corridor Presidential Roundtable and High-Level Industry Forum. The goal of the Forum was to present priority projects on the Central Corridor to potential investors. Other Heads of State in attendance were Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. Presidents Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and Joseph Kabila of DRC sent high-level representation. The Heads of State at the meeting echoed President Kikwete’s call for the private sector to be proactive in working with governments to find much-needed finance to support accelerated development of East Africa’s infrastructure. The Central Corridor from the port of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania to the hinterland countries of Burundi, Eastern DRC, Rwanda and Uganda is the second-busiest trade and transport corridor in East Africa after the Northern Corridor from the port of Mombasa in Kenya. With discoveries of oil and gas in East Africa, the need for upgrading and...

Arusha. The private sector should now contemplate financing development projects in the East African Community (EAC) bloc as a measure to cut down donor dependency. EAC Secretary-General Dr Richard Sezibera said in Kampala on Friday that the growing portifolio of the projects under the Community also called for diversifying the organisation’s resource base. “There is a need for the Community to tap into the potential funding from the private sector through the establishment of an EAC Private Sector Fund,” he said when he addressed CEOs from the private sector in Uganda. The initiative has been made by the Uganda business community and to start with some $20million would be raised to set up the fund expected to boost the participation of the private sector in on-going integration process. “The idea behind the fund is to see how we can ensure that the private sector plays a bigger role in the integration of the EAC. The fund will be used to address various challenges facing the private sector within the EAC,” the Community boss stated. Hosted by the East African Business Council (EABC) in collaboration with the Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU), EAC Secretariat and Trade Mark East Africa, the Forum brought together over 150 key business leaders. Also in attendance were owners and CEOs of private businesses in Uganda who met to dialogue on issues impacting doing business in Uganda and the region as a whole and strategise on the way forward. Uganda’s minister of State for EAC Affairs, Shem...

Kenya aims to build a cargo logistics hub near the border with Uganda to receive and clear goods through customs that arrive by air, rail or road, easing pressure on the port of Mombasa and Nairobi airport, a senior regional official said. The so-called “dry port” would be built near Malaba, along the route of a new rail line being built to provide a faster link for freight coming from the Coast. Kenya has been working with neighbours such as Uganda and Rwanda to speed up transport links from Mombasa, which is the region’s main trade gateway and its busiest port. Busia Infrastructure executive Greg Odeke said the project, which could cost an estimated Sh100 billion, was presented to some international investors last month. “This will be a strategic international business hub for cargo handling and associated business,” Odeke said. He said Busia would seek expressions of interest from investors in July or August. Under the plan, goods arriving by sea and bound for nearby States could be sent directly inland and then go through customs clearance at Malaba. Source: Standard Digital

By 2013, the U.S. had a trade deficit with Africa, importing more from Africa ($51 billion worth) than it was exporting to Africa ($35 billion worth), according to a report in East Africa BusinessWeek by John Sambo. Trade between the U.S. and Africa has grown 7 percent per year over the last decade, with U.S. companies investing $10 billion in African countries, second only to $11 billion from the U.K. More than 400 companies generate more than $1 billion in revenue in Africa, and many are American companies such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, General Motors, Proctor and Gamble and Ford, BusinessWeek reports. Walmart plans to open 63 new stores in five African countries by December 2016. Ten economies account for 80 percent of economic growth. These include six in Sub-Saharan Africa: Angola, Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa; and four in North Africa: Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Libya. But the U.S. share in Africa’s trade has declined from 13 percent in 2001 to 7 percent in 2013, bypassed by China, which grew its share from 3 percent in 2001 to more than 14 percent over the same period. U.S. President Barack Obama’s President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa came out with its first report on how the U.S. can strengthen commercial ties with Africa following the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit of August, 2014. The council made eight recommendations that it says could hold the key to improving U.S. trade with Africa. These include: Improving perception of doing...

Private equity firm Brookwoods Capital has expressed interest in investing Tsh53 trillion ($27 billion) in the construction the Mwambani Port and Railway Corridor (Mwaporc) in Tanga, Tanzania, one of the largest development corridors in the region. The project includes a deep sea port, a free port and a heavy-haul standard gauge railway that will link Tanzania with Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. A free port is an export processing zone (EPZ) in a port, where imported goods can be held or processed duty-free before being re-exported. The East African Community Secretariat has supported the project, which will now be integrated into the region’s infrastructure master plan. Mwaporc co-director Cuthbert Tenga said that they are in negotiations with the Ministry of Transport to sign the project agreement for works to start. “We have received support from East and Central African countries and once the government of Tanzania signs the agreement, it will be used as a module by the other countries,” he said. He said that the negotiations with the ministry started last year and they are hopeful that they will seal the deal soon. The construction of the deep-sea port is expected to allow direct shipping from international ports, which is ultimately expected to cut the cost of logistics for exporters and importers. According to Mr Tenga, the free port will be constructed adjacent to the new deep-sea port, and is expected to host manufacturing, logistics and other service industries. Steel manufacturing Key anchor activities will include an...