EABC Rwanda Business Clinic: Boosting AfCFTA Market Access

• The East African Business Council (EABC) is running a Rwanda Business Clinic to help textile, leather, and edible oil businesses access AfCFTA markets.
• The clinic provides training on AfCFTA market opportunities, Rules of Origin, customs procedures, and export requirements, alongside one-on-one advisory support.
• EABC will onboard participating companies onto the Afreximbank Africa Trade Gateway, a digital platform offering B2B matchmaking, market intelligence, and trade finance.
• Despite significant raw material resources, the EAC accounts for less than one percent of global leather exports, while global finished leather trade grew from $57 billion to $99 billion between 2005 and 2024.
• The initiative aims to boost value addition and intra-regional manufacturing exports, addressing challenges like limited processing capacity and access to finance, with identified untapped export potential in key markets.

The East African Business Council, with financial backing from the African Development Bank through its Fund for African Private Sector Assistance, is facilitating a Rwanda Business Clinic.

The East African Business Council (EABC) is spearheading an initiative to equip enterprises within the East African Community (EAC) with the necessary tools and knowledge to effectively penetrate the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Adrian Raphael Njau, the EABC's Acting Executive Director, emphasized the critical need for regional businesses to identify high-potential export products and strategically target promising AfCFTA markets. This strategic focus aims to enhance value addition to raw materials, particularly in the leather, textile, and edible oil sectors, thereby enabling companies to secure a larger share of both African and global markets.

To achieve this, the EABC, with financial backing from the African Development Bank (AfDB) through its Fund for African Private Sector Assistance (FAPA), is facilitating a Rwanda Business Clinic. This clinic is specifically designed to provide practical knowledge and skills to businesses operating in the textile, edible oil, and leather value chains, directly supporting their efforts to access AfCFTA opportunities. Mr. Njau highlighted that these three sectors were chosen due to their substantial potential to stimulate industrialization, fortify regional value chains, and generate employment across the region.

The Rwanda Business Clinic offers comprehensive training on various aspects crucial for successful AfCFTA engagement, including market opportunities, compliance with Rules of Origin, understanding tariff concessions, navigating customs procedures, and meeting export requirements. Beyond group training, the clinic provides tailored one-on-one advisory support to assist businesses with market entry strategies and overall export readiness. This targeted assistance addresses persistent challenges faced by businesses in these sectors, such as insufficient value addition, limited processing capabilities, elevated production costs, skill deficits, regulatory gaps, and restricted access to financing.

Further bolstering market access, the EABC serves as the onboarding agent for the Afreximbank Africa Trade Gateway (ATG), a pan-African digital trade platform developed by Afreximbank. Through this partnership, the EABC will facilitate the integration of participating companies onto the ATG platform. This integration grants businesses access to vital resources, including business-to-business matchmaking services, critical market intelligence, and trade finance solutions, all designed to streamline and facilitate cross-border trade by connecting exporters, importers, financiers, logistics providers, and government agencies.

Despite the EAC's significant livestock resources, accounting for four percent of the world's cattle and six percent of its small ruminants, the region captures less than one percent of the global leather trade. In 2023, EAC Partner States exported raw hides and skins valued at $33 million while importing $6 million, yet they imported $49 million worth of finished leather goods. This contrasts sharply with the global trend, where trade in finished leather surged from $57 billion in 2005 to $99 billion in 2024, while global trade in raw hides and skins declined from $6.2 billion to $3.3 billion, and semi-processed leather fell from $22 billion to $12.4 billion over the same period. These figures underscore the urgent need for East African nations to invest more heavily in processing and manufacturing to transition beyond raw material exports and capture greater value from the leather industry.

The EAC Industrialisation Strategy 2012-2032 outlines ambitious goals, aiming to increase the local value-added content of resource-based exports from 8.6 percent to 40 percent and elevate intra-regional manufacturing exports from 5 percent to 25 percent by 2032, primarily through strengthening regional value chains. Significant investment opportunities exist, such as the requirement for at least 93 additional weaving mills to meet growing textile demand. The International Trade Centre's Export Potential Map further highlights substantial untapped export opportunities for East African businesses, including $298 million for apparel and textiles in South Africa, $63 million for vegetable oils and fats in India, and $17 million for leather products in Uganda.

Lawyers advising East African businesses in the textile, leather, or edible oil sectors should be aware of the EABC's Rwanda Business Clinic and the Afreximbank Africa Trade Gateway as key resources for clients seeking to leverage AfCFTA market opportunities, particularly concerning compliance with Rules of Origin and customs procedures.

Source: Original reporting via The New Times