East Africa Economic Report

The fate of the two proposed crude oil pipelines in East Africa hangs in the balance. The odds are An Oil rig: Black gold no more leaning towards abandoning the entire Oil industry’s development.  The two, the East Africa crude oil Pipeline (EACOP), and the Lokichar-Lamu crude oil Pipeline, LLCOP, will cost a whopping US$8.6 billion. EACOP is to evacuate Crude oil from Uganda’s Albertine Basin to Tanzania’s Port of Tanga, some 1443 KM away. LLCOP on the other hand will also evacuate crude oil from Kenya’s Lokichar Basin to Lamu port, some 892 kilometers away. The two pipelines are part of the proposal for a three-pronged development of the oil industry in Kenya and Uganda comprised of; the upstream assets; the midstream assets; and the downstream assets. All will cost an estimated US$23.6 billion. In normal times, this amount is minuscule for oil majors such as Total SPA, which owns a large stake in Uganda’s oil Fields at Hoima. However, the times are not normal and the entire pr...

Kenya Airways: AfCTA a  lifeline for struggling airlines Africa began trading under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement Five days ago, on 1 January 2021. By definition, a free trade area is a group of countries that have few or no barriers to trade in the form of tariffs or quotas between each other. Free trade areas tend to increase the volume of international trade among member countries.  AfCFTA is the largest free trade area in the world, with a total population of 1.2 billion, a total GDP of $2.5 trillion, and total business and consumer spending in excess of $4 trillion a year.  https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2018/12/afcfta-economic-integration-in-africa-fofack.htm However, intra-Africa trade is hardly 15 percent of the total continental trade. The reason; barriers-both tariff and Nontariff. The goods exist and the markets too. What stands between them is politics and policy.  The manufacturing sector operates at best at 40-5...