Kenya's National Assembly in special sitting to ratify European Union (EU trade deal)

A special parliamentary sitting has been scheduled for today to ratify the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) ahead of next week's deadline.

Parliamentary Committee on Trade, Planning and Finance has rallied fellow parliamentarians to ensure that the trade deal with the European Union is ratified before the September 30 deadline lapses.

"Kenya has already been put on notice by the EU to ratify the EPA before October 1 or else we lose the duty-free, quota-free EU market access, which will attract heavy taxes on our exports," said the committee chair Benjamin Langat (Ainamoi).

Failure to ratify the agreement on time will see Kenya removed from the preferential list and put on general systems, which will make all exports to the EU market attract tax of between five and 22 per cent.

The preferential market access was extended to Kenya in December 2014 on condition that the country would have signed and ratified the EPA by October 1, this year.

Kenya and Rwanda signed the agreement on September 1 but as the Constitution demands, the agreement (being an international law) has to be ratified before it becomes active.

"In the unlikely event that Kenya does not ratify the EPA, it is estimated that over 70 per cent of Kenya's exports to EU stand to be lost. These are mainly flowers, tea, coffee and groceries that account for 22 per cent of total exports," said Langat.

Some Sh200 billion investment and four million jobs will also be lost.

Negotiations on EPA started way back in 2002 and Kenya was supposed to lobby her neighbours to sign the agreement as a bloc.

However, Tanzania and Burundi have maintained a stiff neck. Tanzania argues that it will not benefit from the deal as their trade margins with the EU are very small and puts their industries at risk.

"We know there are adequate measures that have been put in place to safe guard Kenya from the possible impacts. Some of them include limited number of EU products to be liberalised progressively in a period of 18 years and there is a clause on amendment every five years," said Langat.

EPA provides that these countries will be able to trade with EU at preferential rates and also open up their markets (almost 70 per cent) to the union's products.

"But these will not involve agricultural products, fish and dairy products. In case they are imported, then they will be subject to tax," said Langat.