Cabinet approves the ratification of the tripartite free trade area

With Cabinet approval, Government has started the process of drafting the legal instrument that will form the basis of Uganda’s implementation of the Tripartite FTA Agreement. Upon ratification, Uganda will become the second country to ratify the Tripartite FTA.

Egypt was the first country to ratify. However, for the Tripartite FTA agreement to come into force, 19 Member States (two thirds) out of the 26 must ratify.

The Tripartite Free Trade Area is a unique and ambitious free trade area in that it covers aspects which are not in conventional free trade areas.

Ordinarily free trade areas are about trade liberalization through the removal of tariffs and charges of equivalent effect.

In the case of the Tripartite Free Trade Area there are three pillars; namely, market integration, cooperation in industrialization and infrastructure development and the movement of business persons.

The Acting Commissioner External Trade Richard Okot Okello says the cooperation in industrialization among the three Regional Economic Blocs (RECs) will broaden the manufacturing base for the Member States and enhance regional value chains thereby increase the intra-tripartite trade which stands at a meager 15 percentage points.

Infrastructure development is important in the region in order the increase the stock of infrastructure in terms of land, air and maritime transport, energy and ICT, which will improve interconnectivity and reduce the cost of doing business thereby increasing the attractiveness of the region for domestic and foreign investment.

For example, one of the infrastructure projects in the pipeline is the Cape Town to Cairo road and railway network which will go a long way in improving the connectivity of the tripartite Member States.

Okot Okello however cautions that for in order for Uganda to benefit from the opportunities that the Tripartite arrangement has to offer, we must be able to meet the challenges of competition and satisfy the requirements of the market.

This requires us to, among others; to address the supply side constraints by increasing production and productivity and to address the infrastructure bottlenecks that make the cost of doing business high and hinder our competitiveness.