East African Business Council welcomes progress towards EPA signing

Arusha, Tanzania, March 3, 2010. East African Business Council commends the progress East African Community and European Commission have made towards sorting out contentious issues in the Framework Economic Partnership Agreement expected to be signed by the end of March, 2010.

At a joint EAC-EC meeting in Brussels, Belgium between February 23 and 24, 2010, the two teams made progress on sticky issues in development cooperation and agreed on roadmap towards signing FEPA and completing negotiations for comprehensive EPA.

According to the agreed roadmap, the Framework Economic Partnership (FEPA) is expected to be ready for signing by end of March 2010 and comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) is expected to be signed by December 2010.

The Acting Executive Director of East African Business Council (EABC), Ms Agatha Nderitu, said: “The prolonged impasse on contentious issues in FEPA had created uncertainty among the business community especially in Kenya over whether their goods to the European Union (EU) would soon attract tariffs.”

She added: “The two teams agreeing on how to proceed is a positive development for the business community, in that we can now make recommendations with a clearer roadmap in place.”

The roadmap comes at a time when EABC is planning a meeting in Arusha, Tanzania between March 11th and 12th, 2010 that will bring together the private sector in the region to fine tune position papers on various EPA clusters for submission to the EAC negotiating team.

Some of the private sector positions will be on Rules of Origin, Trade in Services, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures as well as Agriculture, Economic and Development Cooperation and Trade Related Issues namely Competition, Intellectual Property Rights, Investment & Private Sector Development, and Transparency in Public Procurement.

The meeting will be a follow up to an earlier meeting held between November 27 and 28, 2009 in Arusha, Tanzania where participants agreed to continue consulting and come up with harmonized positions on various EPA clusters.

Ms Nderitu said. “EPA should guarantee EAC Products more access to EU Markets beyond duty free and quota market access by having simple and flexible Rules of Origin; more business friendly TBT & SPS and EU cutting substantially its domestic support and doing away with export subsidy programmes in the agriculture sector.”

Initialed in November 2007, the Framework Economic Partnership Agreement (FEPA) with European Commission was expected to be concluded on July 31, 2009 but the signing was postponed until the negotiating teams agree on contentious issues which include Development Cooperation, Most Favoured Nation Clause, Trade in services, among others.

However, the recent meeting in Brussels appears to have broken the deadlock with a clear roadmap in place. “We believe EPA presents opportunities to private sector in East Africa and we would like to see progress made towards signing of a comprehensive EPA,” Ms Nderitu said. “EAC governments should use the adjustment period to make EAC businesses competitive so that they compete with EU and exploit opportunities offered by EPA.”

About EABC
East African Business Council is a regional advocacy body that promotes private sector’s regional and global competitiveness in Trade and Investment. Its membership is drawn from private sector associations and businesses across the five East African Countries (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda). Founded in 1997, EABC has been actively involved in lobbying and advocating for issues that improve private sector’s competitiveness.

For more information contact:
Godwin Muhwezi Bonge
Communications Officer
East African Business Council
P O Box 2617,
Arusha, Tanzania
Cell: +255 766196025
E-mail: gmuhwezi@eabc-online.com
Website: www.eabc.info