East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) during the past session. [Photo/East African magazine.]Kenya has now launched the fresh push for the signing of Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) and East African Community (EAC).
The deal was signed in 2016 by only Kenya and Rwanda. It was however not enforceable as the other members in the East African community Block failed to sign the deal as required.
Industry, Trade and Cooperative Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed said in a telephone interview with Business daily from Brussels that Kenya is optimistic and will continue having its market access to the European Union under the preferential terms regardless of the outcome of their push in signing the deal.
“We have had meetings with the EU today (Wednesday) and another one to be held today (Thursday) we are pushing for our case as a region but it is up to the EU to decide what will happen next in the event the remaining countries refuse to sign the deal,” said Mohammed.
The EPA deal was amended to guarantee the EAC members a duty and quota-free access to the EU market in exchange for a gradual opening of up to 80 percent of the region’s market to European product.
The deal was however not received well by some countries in EAC block including Tanzania and Uganda citing unsincere reasons. Tanzania claimed that signing the deal will kill the local industry.
If Kenya will be locked out of the deal, this will inconvenience the Exported as they will not have a preferential access to European market freely and instead will be charged higher tariffs.