EAC trading times, costs reduced through elimination of Non-Tariff barriers; report

Importation time and costs within the EAC region have been reduced, thanks to efforts on elimination of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs), a Trade Mark East Africa evaluation report has said.

The report on NTB’s programme indicates a 14 per cent reduction in time taken to import goods from each East African country.

It now takes a minimum of 31 days from the previous 36 to export goods from each EAC country, representing a 20 per cent reduction.

“This is a significant milestone in the growth and development of our region. Non-Tariff Barriers remain a stumbling block in growing prosperity in the region,” said Frank Matsaert, CEO, TMEA.

This comes at a time when elimination of Non-Tariff Barriers remains a teething challenge to regional trade and integration a subject partner states grapple with in the quest of growing trade within the EAC bloc.

NTB’s present a serious challenge to trade with an EAC wide cost estimate of NTBs (2010) being approximately US$490 million.

The report which was released this week further shows a reduction in the cost of transporting a standard (40 foot) container from Mombasa to Kigali, from US$6,500 in 2011 to US$4,800, saving approximately US$7 million on the Mombasa-Kigali route alone

Inland transportation times from Dar es Salaam to Kigali have dropped considerably, now to 3.5 days.

Burundi tops the list of the East African countries that has witnessed the highest import reduction time – at 28 per cent, from 30 days to 43.

Exporting from Uganda has lessened from nearly 35 days in 2010 to just 30 days in 2015, while Tanzania has witnessed a 99 per cent reduction in application time from 5 days to one hour to get an electronic certificate of origin.