The East African region is facing tough choices as three global economic powerhouses scramble for long-term trade agreements with the bloc. The US, the European Union and China are increasingly seeking trade deals with the EA bloc.

A fortnight ago, the US announced a $10 million package to help economic integration in the EAC, vowing to double its business investment. A week later, China deployed a 30-member mission comprising government officials and Chinese entrepreneurs to the EAC headquarters in Arusha to engage the secretariat in trade talks. EU on the other hand, has been seeking to finalise negotiations on comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the EA bloc.

“EPAs have the potential to consolidate the EU market for EAC exports. Notwithstanding headway made by the EAC countries in the EPA negotiations with the EU, the issue of ‘duty-free and ‘quota free’ import of goods, remains a tough issue,” said EAC Secretary General, Richard Sezibera.

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The EU has been threatening to deny the preferential market access terms to countries that shall not have signed full economic partnership agreements (EPA) by January 2014.

The five EAC members signed an interim trade deal with Europe in 2007 to guarantee continued duty-free and quota-free access to the European market following the expiry of the non-reciprocal arrangement based on a WTO waiver granted in 2001. The EAC now wants the EU to review the hard stance it had taken on the 2014 deadline.

It is understood that the EU is pushing EAC Partner States to sign an agreement on ‘duty-free and ‘quota free’ import of goods immediately and possibly services in the future from each side.

Honest Ngowi, Mzumbe University Senior Economics lecturer, says it implies that this is a reciprocal agreement as opposed to earlier non-reciprocal agreements under the Everything But Arms (EBA) agreement.

In the EPA deal, the implication of duty free trade agreement is that EU will sell to the EAC goods and services and the EAC will not impose duties — import tax — on these goods and services.

Under the reciprocity agreement the terms and conditions of duty free and quota free agreement will apply both to the EU and EAC countries.

The US Deputy Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis urged the five EAC ministers responsible for trade and investments to seal a long-term trade agreement anytime soon. The EAC-US Trade and Investment Partnership is an important component of the US strategy toward Sub-Saharan Africa, which President Barack Obama announced in June.

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Like the US, China also announced a $100,000 grant to support the EAC in developing co-operation programmes with China. “We want to turn the EAC’s resource strength to industrial strength to increase the currently low trade volumes from EAC to China, accounting for only three per cent of trade between China and Africa,” said Cao Jiachang, the Chinese mission leader to Arusha, also the deputy director general of the Department of West Asian and African Affairs of China’s Ministry of Commerce.

“The US, EU and China are focusing on securing the resources needed to sustain their rapid growth, locking down sources of oil and other necessary raw materials across the world,” said Abdallah Saqware, a lecturer at Institute of Finance Management. “More importantly, they seek a 136-million-EAC-strong market for manufactured goods and services.”