Nesbitt re-elected EABC Chairman, roots for public-private dialogue

East African Business Council (EABC) Thursday re-elected Nicholas Nesbitt as Chairman, during the 20th EABC Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Nairobi, Kenya.

Nesbitt is the Chairman of Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), who was first elected to the EABC helm in June 2018 during the body’s 19th annual general meeting

The AGM also elected Amb. Denis Karera, Mr.Jim Kabeho and Eng. Salum Shamte as Vice-Chairs and Members of the EABC Executive Committee who will strategically guide EABC’s mission to promote sustainable Private Sector driven growth.

In his remarks Nesbitt urged the EAC Governments to enhance public-private dialogue and formulate policies that will solve logistical challenges, fix fragmented value chains, and enhance value addition of products in the region to be competitive in light of the AfCFTA.

This was echoed by Adan Mohamed, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of EAC Affairs and Regional Development, Republic of Kenya.

“The EABC should take lead in reviewing the EAC Common External Tariff (CET) and come up with a CET structure that is beneficial to the East African private sector and make the region more competitive,” said Hon Mohamed,” he said, adding that, African’s unity, future strength and power lies in the large market. He further noted the importance of public-private dialogue to fast track targeted policy reforms to improve the business environment and reposition the EAC bloc to seize benefits availed by the AfCFTA.

The Annual General meetings reviewed the achievements and milestones of the year 2018/19.

Available figures show that intra EAC trade is below 20 per cent compared to markets like  SADC at 40 per cent and EU at 68 per cent, therefore, pointing on the need to strengthen public-private to improve regional intra trade to above 30 per cent in the next two years.

The body was established in 1997 to foster the interests of the Private Sector in the EAC integration process, the EABC is the regional apex body of Private Sector associations and Corporates from the six regional governments.