Professionals in East Africa have launched a body to improve expert services in the region.

Dubbed the East African Professional Services Platform (EAPSP), the body will among others things, lobby for the interests of the professional services sectors in region.

“Services are key inputs to the overall economy and have a significant effect on the investment climate,” EAPSP Vice-chairman Patrick Obath said last week during the launch of the body in Nairobi.

Mr Obath said services also contribute directly to job creation as well as, economic growth and development, adding that in the East African Community (EAC), services contributes more than 50 per cent to the region’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The launch of the body comes at a time when the region is struggling to increase intra-regional trade, despite the coming into force of Common Market Protocol that allows for the free movement of goods and services.

It is one of the challenges the new body, which will draw its membership from all the five member states, will try to tackle.

Mr Obath said the platform will also try to bring professional services issues to the forefront of policy agenda of the EAC.

In order to meet the objective, Mr Obath said, the members will gather and collate information on trade in professional services, including current regulations and regulatory barriers affecting trade in professional services, and also provide relevant information on policy issues to different stakeholders.

Kenya’s East African Community Minister Musa Sirma said EAC offered regional market for professional services, therefore enhancing trade and investment in the EAC.

The minister said professional services had the capacity to increase market efficiency.

Xinhua