Comesa develops new facility to bridge trade information gap

Kenya: Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) secretariat is developing a trade facilitation portal to provide each member state with regulations and documents required for importation and exportation of each product.

The portal is intended to address the information challenges faced by traders. Director of Trade and Monetary Affairs Francis Mangeni informed delegates attending the first meeting of the Comesa National Focal Points on Non Tariff Barriers (NTB) in Nairobi last month that lack of information to traders constituted trade barriers.

"The typology of NTBs within the region as reported onto the online mechanism shows most frequently reported barriers are customs and administrative procedures followed by transport, clearing and forwarding and other administrative procedures," he said.