No tariffs, quotas for Kenya exports to EU from Christmas
What you need to know:
As of Christmas Day (December 25), Kenyan goods will once again enter the European Union market without tariffs or quota limits.
Exporters of cut flowers, fresh produce and other goods that have been subject to taxes and quota limits since October 1 this year.
Kenya has been fast-tracked back onto the list of states that export goods to the European Union duty-free and without quota limits, EU officials say.
“As of Christmas Day (December 25), Kenyan goods will once again enter the European Union market without tariffs or quota limits,” EU Ambassador Lodewijk Briët announced in a statement put out on Christmas Eve.
“This means the Sh200 billion of Kenya exports that are sold in Europe will remain competitive and Europe will remain Kenya's largest export market.”
The news comes a month earlier than expected and will cheer exporters of cut flowers, fresh produce and other mainly agricultural goods that have been subject to taxes and quota limits since October 1 this year.
The duties and limits (set under the EU's Generalised System of Preferences) were imposed after the East African Community states missed a deadline to negotiate and sign Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the EU.
The move ended about 30 years of preferential trade with Europe and was costing Kenyan exporters hundreds of millions of shillings a month.
Agreement between EAC member states on the text of the EPAs was reached in mid-October. Following an appeal by President Uhuru Kenyatta to then EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht that month, the EU promised to speed up Kenya’s return to the preferential regime, expected to take “three to six months”.
As recently as last month, EU officials working on the red tape required to switch back were saying that the return of market access was likely to happen in January.
On November 14, the European Commission decided that Kenyan exports should again be exempted from all import duties on the basis of the Market Access Regulation, a transitory arrangement that offers such preferences to EU partners in anticipation of EPA ratification.
The European Parliament and the Council, thereafter, sped up their respective procedures and approved the Commission's decision leading to the prompt reinstatement.
Kenya is the only EAC member that does not fall into the category of a Least Developed Countries (LDC). As such, it needs an EPA to export its products to the EU market duty-free and quota-free.
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