Trade & Investment Promotion

EABC’s interest in Trade & Investment promotion

East Africa offers high potential to foreign investors. However, the region has not been able to substantially raise FDI levels, to the same extent as other developing countries, especially in Asia e.g. Thailand, China or Vietnam.

EABC’s interest in trade and investment promotion is two-fold:

1. To offer value-added services to member associations engaged in this field at the national level
2. To lobby for an improvement of the business climate in order to make East Africa more attractive to investors

Campaigns & projects

EABC has initiated cooperation activities with several overseas partner organisations.

Munich Conference: EAC and EABC jointly carried out a Trade & Investment Promotion mission to Munich/Germany in 2004. PROINVEST and GTZ were the co-financiers of the Munich Conference. The Munich conference proved to be a good learning experience on the positioning of East Africa as an investment location. In the preparation of the conference EABC has worked out a detailed analysis of the competitive advantages and bottlenecks for FDI. The Munich conference work has helped to improve EABC’s image as broker of national level interests in trade and investment promotion.

Frankfurt Energy Conference: In 2006, East Africa was hit by a major Energy crisis particularly affecting the private sector. EABC has consequently defined the Energy sector as a focal area for lobbying and industrial cooperation. More than 210 participants, among them over 70 representatives from the five member countries of the EAC, and more than 140 representatives from Germany, attended the conference “Invest in Renewable Energies in East Africa”. In preparation of the conference a Lobbying strategy on renewable energies was drafted by EABC. For more information on the conference, please see the conference website: http://www.renewableseastafrica.de

Click here for more information on EABC’s work on Renewable Energies

Trade & Investment promotion projects with Sweden: The following activities were carried out with NIR, Council of Swedish Industries: 

• Business seminar to address impediments on trade and investment promotion
• Training of East African exporters on EU regulations, standards and market access
• Trade mission to Sweden

Standards: In cooperation with PTB (the German Bureau of Standards) EABC implemented export promotion seminars and training for products and quality standards for member associations of EABC.