TUNISIA SAYS IT WILL OPEN TRADE CORRIDOR WITH EAC

 BY GRACE MACHA IN ARUSHA

Tunisia, ranked as one of Africa's competitive economies, says it is keen to open a trade corridor with the East African Community (EAC). 

This has to include increased imports of agricultural commodities from East Africa as well as the investment opportunities. 

"Opening of the corridor has to be as soon as possible", said Ms Sofienne Reigani, the northern African country's  Head of Customs. 

She said the trade corridor between her country and the EAC would create more chances for the latter to export to Europe.

While Tunisia has potential for imports such as electronics, textiles and machinery to the EAC, the latter is a source of agricultural commodities such as coffee. 

Ms Reigan led a delegation of 12 customs officials from his country to Tanzania, Kenya and the EAC headquarters.

They met the officials of the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) as well as those at the shared Namanga One Stop Border Post (OSBP).

"We are here to promote partnership. We have the same  (partnership) with other countries in Africa", she said.

According to her, their two day visit to Arusha has been successful in that they have identified potential areas for cooperation. 

Mohamed Bossetta, the Head of Customs at Rades Port, one of Tunisia's largest, expressed his optimism on trade between the two sides. 

According to him, the EAC exported goods worth $ 31 million to his country last year and imported the same valued at $ 26million. 

"Tunisia is rich with phosphates, cement and has a well developed manufacturing sector,especially in textiles", he explained.

The partnership between his country and the EAC would be developed within the framework of Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.

Evariste Munyampundu, a customs officer in charge of trade facilitation at the EAC secretariat briefed the visitors on how taxation matters impacted intra-EAC trade.

These include, among others, unharmonized domestic taxes, unresolved non-trade barriers (NTBs) and 'nationalistic tendencies' among the partner states.

The mitigation measures applied, albeit without much success, include enforcing legislation on the recently enacted Anti- NTBs Act. 

A trade expert with the EAC secretariat Geoffrey Osoro said there were also challenges associated with implementation of the AfCFTA. 

Some of these have much to do with compliance standards and unfriendly logistics which have seen goods intended for intra-African trade going through overseas ports such as Singapore.

Mr. Osoro said the EAC was struggling hard to address the challenges through strengthening the AfCFTA national implementation committees.

According to the World Economic Forum, Tunisia is among the most competitive economies in Africa, being export-oriented. 

Some years back, it suffered from politically-connected high level corruption but the situation has apparently changed in recent times. 

According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, it ranked among the least corrupt countries in Africa. 

Tunisia has a diverse economy,ranging from agriculture, mining, manufacturing and petroleum products to tourism.