NAIROBI, Kenya
Kenya says Tanzania has doubled the cost of export permits by 93 percent, a move likely to open another round of trade dispute between the two East African countries.
Courtesy |
According to the claims, the
authorities in Tanzania have increased the cost of acquiring export permits
from the previous Sh27, 000 per truck to Sh52, 000, according to border
officials.
The move caused a huge
snarl-up of trucks moving to Kenya in the last one week as traders and truckers
were caught off guard by the new requirement.
“Tanzania has increased the
charges that it levies on export permit to Sh52, 000 per truck creating
confusion at the border but activities are slowly coming back to normal,” said
an officer of the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) who will not be named as he is
not authorized to talk to the media.
Hundreds of trucks were left
stranded at the border the whole of last week as truck owners updated their
export permits to meet the new requirements. However, officials from the Kenya
Bureau of Standards (Kebs) told the Business Daily that they
resumed the clearing of trucks last week.
“We have now seen some
movement of trucks from Tanzania to Kenya. We have carried out some samples of
the goods getting into Kenya, meaning that the normal flow of trucks is slowly
gaining momentum,” said a Kebs official.
The new directive is set to
hit millers who are banking on Tanzania for imports of maize to meet the
current shortage in the country. It is also likely to spark another round of
trade war between Kenya and Tanzania slightly over a year after the two
countries resolved their differences that had impacted negatively on
cross-border trade.
The long-standing trade
disputes had slowed down the flow of goods across common borders since 2019.
Tanzania had in 2020 imposed a
25 per cent import duty on Kenyan confectionery, including juice, ice cream,
chocolate, sweets and chewing gums, claiming Kenya had used zero-rated
industrial sugar imports to produce them.
Kenya banned Tanzanian tour vans from accessing the Maasai Mara National Reserve, arguing that Tanzania had banned Kenyan operators from accessing the Serengeti National Park.
Tanzania escalated the trade
spat in February last year when it imposed fresh quality verification standards
for Kenyan products.
These differences were,
however, resolved when the new Tanzanian President Samia Hassan visited Nairobi
last year for a bilateral meeting with his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta. -
Business Daily
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