East African Business Week

KIGALI, RWANDA -Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda are among the six member states of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) that have agreed to further simplify and improve the operation of the simplified trade regimes (STR).
The regimes are aimed at improving cross border trade especially for small scale traders who dominate the regional markets in the three East African Community (EAC) member states.
A statement issued by the COMESA secretariat said that the regimes will result into more goods being produced and traded in the member countries.
"This means more employment and incomes thereby improving standards of living, better collection of statistical information of the goods values and quantities traded which enhances the planning and decision making of the member countries," said the statement.
The agreement to improve the trade regimes was reached at a one day meeting that was attended by ambassadors, ministers, permanent secretaries and senior government officials from the six countries who attended a one day meeting in Lusaka, Zambia recently.
The statement said  following direction from the COMESA council of ministers, the secretariat initiated the simplified trade regime and 10 out of the 19 member states agreed to pilot the programme in 2007.  "Four years down the line, six countries namely Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe through COMESA and, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda have implemented the regime under the auspices of the East African Community (EAC)," said the statement issued recently.
It said the secretariat has been working with member states in implementing the regime and they have instituted a monitoring and feedback system which is the establishment of trade information desks at all borders.
"To date, COMESA and the Cross Border Traders Associations are able to get statistics of the simplified trade regime transactions at all the borders in the Southern region," added the statement.
The ministers and government officials discussed among others, the need to increase upwards the value threshold of the simplified trade regime from the current amount of $500 per consignment as it poses a limitation to the Free Trade Area regime.
"Our guided view though, at COMESA Secretariat remains that there is a potential to reach out and benefit more deserving traders where the limit threshold for STR is kept flexible," said the COMESA Secretary General Sindiso Ngwenya
"We believe that as long as the traders are carrying goods that meet the rules of origin, access to the simplified Certificate of Origin should be guaranteed and the secretariat is very keen on seeing the STR process work through," he said at the opening the meeting.
Malawi minister of commerce, trade and industry Eunice Kazembe, David Wakikona the Minister of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives from Uganda attended the meeting.
Other countries present at the meeting included Burundi, the DR Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
According to the COMESA small and medium enterprises (SME) toolkit,  problems faced by small scale cross border traders that prevent them from benefiting from trading with others include lack of knowledge of the benefits of trading with other member countries, lack of information on trading opportunities, lack of written rules resulting in difficulties for traders in knowing their rights.
Others include payment of customs duties on goods that attract no customs duties owing to a lack of knowledge, complex documentation to complicated processes of filling them, lack of documentation to enable small scale cross border traders to benefit from paying little or no customs duty, the cost and time involved.
Others are difficulties in acquiring entry visas into neighbouring countries, physical and sexual harassment especially against women who form large number of small scale cross border traders, non-recognition of COMESA documents by customs officials, limited finance to fulfill orders, delays in clearing of goods and processing of tax refunds, fear of robbery and loss of goods and lack of safe affordable accommodation in border towns.