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KIGALI Rwanda (Xinhua) --
Rwandan and Tanzanian traders under their respective private sector bodies on
Monday expressed concerns over barriers to free trade in both countries in
Rwanda’s capital city Kigali.
The
requirement of work permits for clearing and forwarding agents was a bottleneck
to set up offices in Tanzania’s capital Dar es Salaam, said Rwandans working in
Tanzania at a business forum that brought together 15-member delegation from the
Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) and their Rwandan counterparts.
Other
bottlenecks include denial of Rwandan trucks from transporting agriculture
products from Tanzania and less migration working hours, they said.
The meeting
was convened to identify policy and regulatory restrictions limiting free
movement of goods, services, capital and investment between the two countries
that need to be addressed.
While
Tanzanian companies in Rwanda complained of 200 U.S. dollars asked by Rwanda
from Tanzanian transporters crossing the border and the difficulty of
registering a clearing and forwarding company in Rwanda.
Gili Teri,
Director of Policy, Research and Lobbying of TPSF, cited what he called joint
challenges such as non-harmonized road tolls.
“This brings
about a difference in charges when transporting to different regions hence
varying costs,” said Teri.
Tanzania is
Rwanda’s third largest trading partner in the East African Community bloc behind
Uganda and Kenya, with total trade accounting for 14 percent of Rwanda’s trade
with EAC, according to Robert Opirah, the Director-General for Trade and
Investment in Rwanda’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and EAC Affairs.
Opirah
stressed the importance of the two countries as trading partners. He said it was
necessary for both governments to continue to address the cited challenges in
order to facilitate trade.
Rwanda
remains committed to seeking practical ways of completely eliminating non-trade
barriers in order to facilitate easier trade across borders and the region,
Opirah told the forum.
Stephen
Ruzibiza, the chief executive of Rwanda’s private sector federation, called for
good business environment.
We must
continuously collaborate, or regularly share views on how best we can
collaborate to further make things better, Ruzibiza said. |
