A cross section of importers and exporters in East African markets are now spending less time and incurring less transactional fees when trading says a recent evaluation report of 6 online portals in East Africa.
The evaluation estimates that 6 online portals have contributed a net savings of up to US$ 6.6 million for traders in East Africa, reduced operational costs, improved document management due to e-storage and improved effectiveness and efficiency.
Currently, the evaluated portals have on average reduced clearance time from 3.3 days to 2 hours and costs by an average of $62 per transaction from US$72 to US$ 10.
Since going live, a total of 38908 transactions have been made over the six portals between 2013-2016 with combined transaction costs reducing from $2,801,376 to $389,080 and the agencies reducing processing time for both import and export from 79 hours (3.3 days) to only 2 hours, on aggregate.
The evaluated portals were supported by TradeMark East Africa’s Single Window Information for Trade (SWIFT) programme and included 6 portals – Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, (KNCCI) portal, and the Tea Directorate (TD); in Rwanda the Ministry of Agriculture (RALIS – MinAgri), and the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) portals; in Tanzania the Tanzania Food and Drug Authority (TFDA) while in Uganda, the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) portal.
“Single Window Information for Trade programme has helped reduce time taken to acquire trade documents by eliminating periods of process inactions which are inevitable with manual processes. Consequently, transactional costs incurred in the process of acquiring trade regulatory documents have also reduced through automating processes that previously necessitated physical movement to government offices. Now traders can access this important service from anywhere in the world.” says Frank Matsaert, CEO, TradeMark East Africa.
The independent report demonstrates that Information Communication Technology (ICT) positively impacts businesses and economies by transforming trade systems and procedures, making them simpler, accessible, more transparent, efficient and predictable.
Automating key government trade processes and systems have been hailed as important building blocks necessary to meet East Africa’s key trade needs.
TMEA’s vision in the region is to expand the trade digital footprint to 100% thereby creating a future where all East Africa trade transactions and supporting services are done digitally from end-to-end.
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