{"id":3916,"date":"2013-08-04T17:32:48","date_gmt":"2013-08-04T17:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=3916"},"modified":"2013-10-11T01:20:18","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T05:20:18","slug":"kenyan-businesses-urge-ethiopia-to-eliminate-trade-bottlenecks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/3916","title":{"rendered":"Kenyan Businesses Urge Ethiopia to Eliminate Trade Bottlenecks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>Kenyan manufacturers have asked the\u00a0Ethiopian government to eliminate bottlenecks currently hindering the development of bilateral trade between the two neighbours.<\/p>\n

Speaking on behalf of the traders, the Kenya\u00a0Association of Manufactures (\u00a0KAM), called upon \u00a0Prime Minister,\u00a0Hailemariam Desalegn, to fast track investment opportunities and allow Kenyan banks and traders to conduct business in the country.\u00a0Ethiopia was also urged to become a signatory of the Comesa\u00a0Free Trade Area protocol and improve capacity building.<\/p>\n

Following a three day visit to Ethiopia, KAM\u00a0chief executive officer Betty Maina Maina said \u201cThe transit pact will allow the movement of transit cargo and goods across the border at Moyale.\u201d Cabinet Secretary for\u00a0East African Community,\u00a0Tourism\u00a0and Commerce Phyllis Kandie, was also part of the delegation that visited Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

Ethiopia\u2019s Prime Minister in turn called for\u00a0 a quick ratification and development of the protocols for the implementation of the Special Status Agreement (SSA) signed last year.<\/p>\n

Cordial relations<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI still feel the devil is in the details and there is need to work on the specific details with our private sector and our respective governments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Desalegn promised to carefully consider allowing\u00a0Kenyan owned banks to conduct business in his country.\u00a0 The\u00a0Kenya\u00a0and\u00a0Ethiopian parliaments have yet to ratify the pact.<\/p>\n

KAM\u00a0also asked the country to deal with the current foreign currency shortage, which\u00a0 has impacted the growth of the manufacturing sector.\u00a0 Statistics indicate that Kenya is among Ethiopia\u2019s largest trade partners on the continent. In 2010, Kenya\u2019s exported goods worth $43 million against imports worth $2.4 million.<\/p>\n

The PM expressed doubt over the\u00a0application of the rules of origin where goods are concerned saying that his country was obligated to protect budding domestic industries from competition by cheap imports.<\/p>\n

He also said that Ethiopia was studying\u00a0the Comesa\u00a0protocol but added that more investors were welcome into the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis country has huge potential in agriculture, we have around 400, 000 hectares of sugar production in this country. Anyone who wants to engage in sugar and palm oil production is welcome to come and invest.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kenyan manufacturers have asked the\u00a0Ethiopian government to eliminate bottlenecks currently hindering the development of bilateral trade between the two neighbours. Speaking on behalf of the traders, the Kenya\u00a0Association of Manufactures (\u00a0KAM), called upon \u00a0Prime Minister,\u00a0Hailemariam Desalegn, to fast track investment…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4993],"tags":[43,42],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3916"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}