Improved relations good for regional integration

President Uhuru Kenyatta and President John Magufuli (Photo: Courtesy)

Early this month, diplomatic relations between Kenya and Tanzania took a turn for worse when the two countries banned cross-border trading in some commodities that occasioned losses to traders on both sides. Tanzania banned the export of unprocessed food to Kenya as a protest against Kenya's ban on importation of cooking gas and wheat from Tanzania.

This, as this newspaper earlier observed, was going against the spirit of deeper economic integration and the creation of a solid regional trading block for the people of Eastern Africa. Gratifyingly, after high-level discussions between Presidents Uhuru Kenyatta and John Pombe Magufuli of Tanzania, the Foreign Affairs ministers of Kenya and Tanzania met and later announced the resumption of cross-border trade in the banned commodities.