The Brookings Institution in its recent Foresight Africa 2016 report on regional integration in sub-Saharan Africa, said the EAC has implemented several joint infrastructure projects.

 

Among them is the Arusha-Namanga-Athi River Road, a road which runs from Tanzania to Kenya. The road has facilitated the movement of traffic in the region. It has also enhanced the import/export traffic from the port of Mombasa. The EAC has many other upcoming infrastructure projects, including the rehabilitation of the Kenya-Uganda railway.

 

In addition, in 2015 the EAC with two other RECs signed the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement set to be implemented by January 2016. It aims to unite three major regional economic communities: the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC), and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).

 

The TFTA covers 26 countries, whose economies accounts for more than 50% of Africa's GDP and 56% of Africa's population. The TFTA will serve as a building block toward the Continental FTA (CFTA), which would include all 54 African countries. The African Union is committed to completing the CFTA by 2017, which, if successfully implemented, could stimulate intra-African trade by 50%.

 

Consequently, the implementation of the TFTA and the CFTA, could lead to the diversification of African economies and therefore help reduce African countries' dependence on raw material and primary commodity exports, while developing a greater capacity to compete on a global scale.

 

The Foresight Africa 2016 report also indicates that the participation in regional value chains will help generate economic gains in the short run and facilitate the integration of African production into global value chains in the long run.

 

For a long time, the 54 countries of Africa have been a patchwork of different languages, laws, and currencies, making travel (let alone business) on the continent quite an endeavor. Indeed, for businesses, for a long time being in Africa has required moving from country to country, which too often means more than just navigating a map and changing money-it includes meeting different standards, understanding different laws, and paying different tariffs at every (and there are many) border crossings. At the same time, African countries, many landlocked and small, face unique challenges in being able to scale industries and access markets.

 

 

 

 

Source : allafrica.com