Kenya is planning to set up product warehouses in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo in a bid to increase the ease of access to its products, a well as reducing the country’s trade deficit.
The initiative also aims at increasing exports and reduce competition from neighbouring countries.
“We intend to take up space at a free trade zone that the government has set up for us at the border with DRC in Gatumba, which we are marketing to Kenya’s private sector,” Kenya’s ambassador to Burundi Ken Vitisia told The EastAfrican in Bujumbura.
The free trade zone will offer Kenyan companies easy access to the Burundi market, where Kenyan brands are 16% more expensive than products from competing countries.
Research done by the Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency (KeProBA) attributes the high cost of Kenyan products to the high cost of manufacturing in the country, brought about by high electricity costs and huge taxes.
Currently, Kenya controls 6% of the combined Rwanda and Burundi markets worth $8 billion, with Nairobi’s exports to DRC standing at Ksh15 billion as of 2018, as per data from KeProBA.
In line with the warehouses initiative, County governments have been advised to harmonize their levies to lower the cost of production of local goods destined for east and central Africa.
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