CS defends trade deal with Britain

Trade and Industrialisation Betty Maina (left) presents a gift to UK High commissioner to Kenya Jane Marriott (right) on March 12, 2021, at PanAfric Hotel. [Edward Kiplimo, Standard]

The recently signed economic trade agreement between Kenya and the United Kingdom has a lot to offer, the government has said.

The economic partnership agreement was met with uproar from local traders and parliament with fears that it could lead to unfair competition for local producers.

The Ministry of Trade and Industrialisation, however, says the trade deal will open up the UK more to Kenyan goods and services.

Cabinet Secretary Betty Maina said the country has an open field to ship as much as it can to the UK without any duties or quotas while the negotiated trade agreement offers predictability and security to businesses.

“Some of the pushback on the trade deal was based on erroneous information. This agreement does not open up a lot of farm produce or agricultural products for liberalisation because we recognise the centrality of that for Kenya,” she said yesterday in Nairobi during an exhibition of some of the goods that Kenya exports to Britain.

“The 2.5 per cent that will never be liberalised contains a lot of agricultural products. The people who were accusing us of selling out farmers were misleading the public and the farmers.”

The CS added that the agreement secures a duty-free and quota-free market for Kenya.

“This agreement secures duty-free and quota-free market for Kenya to which we exported Sh40 billion (worth of goods) in 2020,” she said.

“If we didn’t have this agreement, Kenyan flowers and vegetables would have attracted duty fees of eight per cent, which would make us less competitive and erode our market presence, so it was critical that we do this.”