Kampala
9/11/07
 
EAC PARTNER STATES IN GRUELLING NEGOTIATIONS FOR ECONOMIC INTERGRATION.

By Leo Odera Omolo
 
Negotiation on the possibility of establishment of the East African Community’s second stage of integration, the Common Market, has started in earnest raising expectations that the process will finally get underway.
 
Reports making the round in the Ugandan capital says that a high level task force of negotiation from the community’s member states met in Entebbe last week for a workshop.
 
The workshop was also attended by senior government officials and experts from the EAC secretariat in Arusha as well as representative from the East African Business Council.
 
The meeting comes barely two months after the summit made up of heads of states from the five partner states of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi directed the secretariat to expedite the establishment and residence of the European Union (EU) experience on Common Market negotiations among others.
 
The chairman of the EAC Council of Ministers, Eriya Kategaya said the implementation of the Custom’s Union has enhanced free movement of goods and services and resulted in increased volumes of trade within and among the partner states.
 
Mr. Kategaya who is also the Ugandan Minister for East African Affairs said the Common Market would further promote productivity, wealth creation, competitiveness and enhance the entrepreneurial capacity of the private sector to the region leading to better standards of living for East Africans.
 
The minister said ‘’the negotiations should be handled in a candid, technical and professional manner, ‘’adopting a spirit of give and take and always focusing on the greater collective East African Interests’’.
 
The membership of the high Level Task Force is expected to remain consistent throughout the negotiations process for purposes and continuity and timely delivery of the EAC Common Market Protocol.
 
According to the EAC Deputy Secretary General in-charge of projects and programme, Dr. Julius Orien, the Entebbe workshop was meant to enable participants get acquainted with the issues involved in the EAC Common Market.
 
The negotiations are expected to conclude the common market protocol by December 2008. EAC seeks to have the common market official launch of the market in January 2010.