Kigali, Rwanda — East African Community (EAC) countries have been urged to quickly approve changes to the Customs Union rules so that a regional committee can be formed to handle trade disputes and help remove the barriers that are slowing down trade between member states.
The call was made on Monday, August 11, 2025, during a two-day EABC CEO–EAC Secretariat Consultative Meeting aimed at assessing progress made in scrapping Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) that have been attributed to the cause of low trade volumes within member states.
EAC Committee on Trade Remedies plays the role of handling trade disputes and ensuring fair trade within the EAC by investigating unfair trade practices, recommending corrective measures and ensuring compliance with EAC trade rules.
Monica Mihigo addressing the CEOs
However, Monica Mihigo, the Principal Internal Trade Officer at EAC Secretariat says that the article amendments were already signed by Heads of State, but the ratification and notification has only been done by Burundi.
The ratification is supposed to be done by respective parliaments of each of the EAC member states to allow all eight countries to have three representatives each on the committee instead of the current three original founder states .
Mihigo said that if this committee is established, compensation of traders affected by the NTBs can be possible, but this cannot be done without a legal commitment by all member states.
Dennis Karera, East African Business Council (EABC) Vice Chairperson stated that illegal NTBs, non-aligned Rules of origin (RoRs), and failure to ratify amended articles to operationalize the EAC trade remedies mechanism are some of the reasons why the region trades is low.
In 2024 the intra-EAC trade expanded by 9.35% to USD 15.2 billion while the EAC’s total trade with the rest of the world increased by 14.17% to $124.9 billion, up from $109.4 billion in 2023. EAC exports grew by 24.72% to $56 billion, while EAC imports rose by 6.83% to $68.9 billion.
The statistics shows that the share of intra-EAC trade to total trade for 2024 was 10.8% while the share of trade with rest of the world to total trade was 89.2%.
Adrian Raphael Njau
Adrian Raphael Njau, Acting EABC Executive Director, stated that the existing Customs Union Protocol (of January 1, 2005) was supposed to resolve all the NTBs, and no partner state was supposed to come up with new NTBs; however, some countries have done so, and this has been a big challenge for the EABC as a private sector advocate.
“We are considering calling for sanctions for such partner states but also calling for political will as a way forward,” Njau said.
Charles Omusana, EAC Principal Economist (Investment & Private Sector Promotion), stated that the EAC integration pillars of the Customs Union and Common Market are cornerstones of development for the socio-economic transformation of East African citizens, but it’s unfortunate that challenges keep popping up.
“We have a committee on NTBs, but unfortunately, they keep occurring. On charges- we had ministers discuss this and asked that a compilation of laws is done to resolve this by October.
Omusana also revealed that as part of the solution to transportation delays seen at regional borders, the EAC is planning to establish e-gates to resolve the issues of cargo delays, and this will soon be piloted in a few countries.
Clementine Mukeka
Rwanda’s Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Clementine Mukeka, stated that the EAC is the most integrated regional economic bloc in Africa and reiterated the Government’s commitment to structured public–private dialogue to find solutions to boost intra-EAC trade for improved livelihoods of its people.
EABC and sponsors announced a regional Business and Investment Summit 2025
A regional Business and Investment Summit due in October 2025, which will bring together Heads of Government and stakeholders, is expected to discuss these key policy issues affecting the bloc’s full integration and craft a way forward.
Ahead of the summit, PS Mukeka said that the EAC business community should come up with at least three key issues that need to be urgently addressed and committed to tabling these in the next ministerial meeting due in October 2025.
