Kenya yet to sign Economic Partnership Agreement with European Union

Kenya: Kenya is yet to sign the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPAs) with the European Union because of some outstanding issues. EPAs, which are an improvement of the Lome Conventions that date back to 1975, are expected to enhance the current preferential market access of Kenya’s products in the EU.

The deal is also meant to promote competitiveness of target commodities, and to safeguard Kenya’s growing exports including flowers to the EU.

In an interview with The Standard, Senior Assistant Director of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of EAC Affairs and Commerce, Eliazar Muga, said negotiations were ongoing to conclude discussions on outstanding issues.

“We are optimistic that we will sign the agreement very soon. We last met in Brussels to iron out the outstanding issues and now we have been meeting in Arusha to table our findings,” said Muga.

Kenya is negotiating the EPAs under the auspices of the East African Community-EU-EPAs arrangement. In 2007, the East African Community agreed to negotiate EPAs as a bloc.

Among the outstanding issues that Kenya is yet to agree with the EU are duty and taxes on exports.

“The EU does not want us to put taxes on our exports since our exports are mainly raw materials,” explained Muga.