The East Africa Community secretariat has said it will revise required standards for coffee, tea, cocoa, and horticultural products of its five partner states.
The revision, scheduled to take place between March and mid June, will address access constraints of the said products to the European market.
Partner states targeted in this exercise include Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania excluding South Sudan.
According to a tender notice posted on their website, the secretariat has partnered with the European Union to harmonize the Technical Barriers to Trade -TBT and Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary-SPS standards for the said products. The two have formulated the “EU-EAC Market Access Upgrade Programme (MARKUP)” aimed at addressing both supply side and market access constraints of the value chains.
“The programme is aimed at supporting EAC partner states’ participation in regional and global markets - with a focus on exports to the European Union,” The secretariat notes.
Latest EAC Trade Investment Report shows that EAC global exports decreased 9.3 per cent to $14.7 billion ( Sh1.49 trillion) in 2017 from $16.2 billion (Sh1.64 trillion) in 2016. The main regional export commodities then included gold, coffee, and tea.
EAC intra-regional exports increased from $2.7 billion ( Sh273 billion) in 2016 to $2.9 billion ( Sh294 billion) in 2017. Kenya, South Sudan, and Burundi recorded a decline by 7.4 per cent, 24.2 per cent and six per cent respectively.
