Imported sugar is offloaded at the port of Mombasa. Comesa has given Kenya a one-year extension on sugar safeguards from the regional states, limiting the entry of sweetener into the country. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
The decision was made Thursday by the Comesa Council of Ministers during its two-day sitting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia that ends Friday.
The extension will operate on the basis of the terms and conditions that the sugar industry in the country had been given in 2007 as a prerequisite for the extension.
Comesa has given Kenya a one-year extension on sugar safeguards from the regional states, limiting the entry of sweetener into the country.
The one-year extension, to protect the country from influx of cheap sugar from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) states, has been issued under the existing safeguard subject to review and renewal for another one year.
The decision was made Thursday by the Comesa Council of Ministers during its two-day sitting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia that ends Friday.
The extension will operate on the basis of the terms and conditions that the sugar industry in the country had been given in 2007 as a prerequisite for the extension.
These conditions included privatising state-owned mills, doing research into new early maturing and high sucrose content sugarcane varieties and adopting them, and paying farmers on the basis of sucrose content instead of on weight basis.
In making the decision, the Council noted that Kenya has made some progress on the terms of conditions noting that parliament had approved privatisation of the five State-owned sugar companies.
Kenya had requested for a fifth extension, arguing that some of its factories are at an infantry stage and not ready to compete with low cost sugar from regional members.
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