East African Union may soon open up to EU

  1. Posted on Monday 17 December 2007 - 10:28
    Chris
    Image of Chris
    East African Union May Soon Open Up to European Union.


    The five countries of East African community may speed their markets to the European Union, Rwanda’s industry minister says.
    Mr. Vincent Karega said that, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi may try to remove almost two thirds of their import tariffs in the next two years.
    The EU is currently negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with African, Caribean and pacific nations.
    They replace preferential trade deals that expire in at the end of the year.
    The world trade organization’s waiver on EU’s trade deals with former colonies ends 31 December 2007.
    The two years is very much an interim period during which flexibility will be looked into.Mr Karega told BBC.
    ‘Business is important as far as our countries are concerned because we cannot rely on aid all the time” he added. The international monetary Fund has expressed concern that the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) could damage poor countries by cutting their customs revenues.
    ‘The long-term impact of the discussion will certainly be positive to the Africans but you need you need to discuss the short-term concerns that are being raised by the Africans as well,” said the IMF’s Africa director Abdoulaye Bio-Tchange.
    The EPAs would allow most products to be traded duty free between the EU and the other blocs,
    There are expected to be exceptions for particular sensitive products such as sugar and rice, which will be liberalized more gradually.

    Chris in Kmapala

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