THE East African Community (EAC) has been resolutely addressing the issue of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) and protectionism that have been hindering the expansion of intra-EAC trade in the region.
EAC Secretary General Dr Peter Mathuki announced significant progress in this endeavour, highlighting that out of 33 reported NTBs, 26 have been successfully resolved as of June.
Dr Mathuki said that the region was, therefore, working continuously to eliminate NTBs with 26 NTBs having been resolved out of the 33 that had been reported at the end of June.
“To facilitate free movement of goods, partner states have effectively eliminated NTBs as they arise and have cumulatively eliminated a significant number of 184 NTBs with only a few remaining outstanding,” said Dr Mathuki.
The EAC total trade increased by 13.4 per cent to 74.1 billion US dollars last year from 65.3billion US dollars in 2021, while the total Intra-EAC trade grew by 11.2 per cent to 10.9 billion US dollars last year from 9.8 billion US dollars.
“The increase is attributed to a strong collaboration with partner states to promote EAC trade including admission of DRC, timely resolution of NTBs, enhanced trade facilitation initiatives.
“The implementation of the Single Customs Territory, which is a stop gap measure towards the realisation of a fully-fledged Custom Union in the EAC, has seen a reduction in the turn-around time from an average of 21 days to four days along the EAC corridors,” he said.
The EAC Deputy Secretary General in charge of Customs, Trade and Monetary Affairs, Ms Annette Ssemuwemba, said some 95 per cent of the EAC Customs regimes including imports and exports have been operationalised with transit being piloted.
“The average transit time from the main EAC ports of entry [Dar es Salaam and Mombasa] to the exit borders reduced from 86.16 hours (3.59 days) to 81.84 hours (3.2 days) last year,” she said.
