The East African Community has been on a dynamic development path with fast growth, demographic transition and high levels of foreign direct investment.

In the past decade, the EAC economies grew at an average of 5.8 per cent, faster than any other economic community in the world except the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

In the same period, each EAC country more than doubled its own GDP and, with the exception of Burundi, the other four countries are on track to achieving middle-income status (GDP per capita of $1,000) by the end of this decade.

They are also experiencing a “demographic dividend” due to declining fertility rates and a rapid expansion of the working age population, with the fast demographic growth being driven not by more children, but by people living longer.

Foreign direct investment inflows to the EAC have tripled in the past decade, from $590 million to $1.7 billion. These impressive economic and social gains were not predictable 30 years ago, when the former EAC collapsed.

The previous attempt at EAC integration lasted only 10 years (1967-1977), from which the EAC today has clearly learnt many lessons.

The first two of the four planned stages of EAC integration — Customs Union, Common Market, monetary union and political federation — are now in place.

Tariffs within the region have been successfully reduced from 26 per cent in 1994 to 10 per cent in 2011 and a common external tariff imposed on goods imported from non-EAC countries.

There has been a strong shift towards regional trade; whereas only a few years ago the United Kingdom was Kenya’s top trading partner, Uganda has now taken that slot. Moreover, the EAC now trades more with itself than with any other region in the world.

However, the EAC market is still very small — with intra-EAC goods exports accounting for only $2.2 billion a year.

The European Union trades more in a day than the EAC trades in a year.

It is evident that deepening intra-EAC trade would bring substantial benefits — lower prices and a greater diversity of goods and services, as well as reductions in regional unemployment.

There are also potential gains in manufacturing and services, with improved efficiencies in regional production chains and Kenyan firms benefiting from increased exports to the region.

But Kenya is not leading the EAC integration effort as much as it should. Kenya imposes more rules and regulations on its imports than do many other sub-Saharan African countries.

In fact, counter to the principle of EAC integration, Kenya actually imposes more rules and regulations on imports from its EAC partners than on imports from the rest of the world. These rules and regulations — when poorly designed or poorly implemented — act as non-tariff barriers constraining growth in trade.

So, what should be done to deepen EAC integration? First, the EAC should be allowed to feed itself. Tanzania and Uganda are food surplus countries and in 2006-2008, the EAC region had an overall maize surplus.

But non-tariff barriers to trade, such as maize export bans, have prevented farmers in Tanzania from trading with Kenya — a food deficit country — to the detriment of Tanzanian producers and Kenyan consumers.

In addition, Kenya has imposed numerous health and safety rules on EAC food imports, limiting their supply and directly increasing domestic food prices. These barriers hurt the poor most, given that the poor consume relatively more of food than other goods.

Second, transport logistics need to be improved, and they can be. Truck drivers often wait for over five hours to load at the port of Mombasa and one to two hours at each weighbridge along the Northern Corridor through Kenya to Rwanda.

Given that there are six weighbridges in Kenya and three in Uganda, each truck on route from Mombasa to Kigali can lose the equivalent of an entire day idling at weighbridges alone.

These weighbridges should be reduced (as Kenya has once again promised they will be) and measures taken to ensure transporters comply with the stipulated axle load limits.

Third, Kenya is a net exporter of services and there is great potential for Kenya to export more services to the EAC.

Kenya’s banks are already leading in regional integration in the EAC banking sector and Kenyan supermarkets have a strong presence in the region.

If the free movement of labour, as provided for by the Common Market Protocol, is to be realised, then EAC countries must mutually recognise professional service qualifications from other EAC countries.

This has already been done in accounting and architecture services, but other sectors need to follow.

Furthermore, in addition to recognising qualifications, the EAC countries need to remove the lengthy (discriminatory and protectionist) procedures for issuing work permits to other EAC citizens.

It often takes up to five months to acquire work permits for workers from other EAC countries, frustrating domestic firms that need skills from across the borders.

The EAC has made great strides in recent years and experienced great success, but it must now fast-track the removal of non-tariff barriers to create a competitive regional economy.

Therein lies a great opportunity for Kenya to improve its trade balance, lower prices of goods and services and improve its food security.

Ian Mills is a World Bank economist, and Nora Carina Dihel is a World Bank senior trade economist