The Ministry of Trade and Industrialization now says that exports among East African countries has dropped significantly as member countries embark on addressing the needs of their consumers.
This emerged on Monday during a validation workshop for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) which is a flagship project of the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
According to the CAS in the Ministry David Osiany, long gone were the days when the regions' countries relied on each other for some products and services.
He said that countries had adapted to their needs and were focusing on local production and demand instead of relying on imports.
“In the last couple of years, exports around the East African countries have reduced drastically as each country embarks on doing its own production,” he said.
Addressing the press in Lake Naivasha Resort during the ongoing validation workshop for the AfCFTA strategy, Osiany however downplayed the drop in exports.
The CAS noted that the African continent had high market potential in terms of various goods and demand from individual countries.
“The African Continental Free Trade Area strategy will address the issue of market in all the member countries which have over 1.2B persons,” he said.
On Covid-19, Osiany admitted that the commerce sector had been hardest hit leading to massive job losses and closure of companies.
He termed this as a universal challenge that had affected the whole world adding that countries were now under recovery following the pandemic.
“Currently we are reviewing the effects of the pandemic and the government is keen to address emerging challenges that have faced traders and manufacturers,” he said.
On AfCFTA, the CAS noted that the aim of the trade agreement was to boost intra-African trade among the 55 member states with a market of more than 1.2B people.
“The aim of this workshop is to review the updated draft strategy by ensuring that it is aligned to the national development goals and objectives,” he said.
The Secretary of Trade Bruno Lunyiru said that Kenya started the process of developing its National AfCFTA Implementation Strategy in November 2019 and the draft had been subjected to public participation twice.
“Under this strategy trade barriers will be removed and this will come in handy for small-scale traders keen to do business with their partners in other countries,” he said.
