1. A Growing Population and Market: With a Population of over 170 Million People most of who are young, coupled with a constantly expanding Middle Class, manufacturers in East Africa are assured of local buyers for their products before even thinking about export opportunities.
2. African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AFCFTA): This is the World’s largest Free Trade Area bringing together 55 countries of the African Union (AU) and 8 Regional Economic Communities (REC’s) which all combined create a single market for the continent. Manufacturing from East Africa will in the near future give one an advantage to sell their products in all 55 member countries of AFCFTA.
3. Export Processing Zones (EPZ) and Special Economic Zones (SEZ) : Each Partner State of East African Community has gazetted EPZs and SEZs. These Zones focus on contributing to strong export led economic development through industrialization. They provide a number of specific incentives for investors operating within them, which include fiscal and non-fiscal incentives , including corporate tax holidays, duty and VAT exemptions.
4. Labour cost in East Africa is very low. No wonder some Chinese manufacturing has already started shifting to Africa because wages in China are rising quickly.
5. Abundance of natural resources: Besides the extra ordinary natural resource of wildlife, the East Africa Community region is endowed with a variety of minerals including fluorspar, titanium and zirconium, gold, oil, gas, cobalt and nickel, diamonds, coal, iron ore and others. Therefore setting up mineral processing plants in East Africa makes a lot of sense.
6. Access to the World Markets: Many countries especially the Western ones have friendly trade policies to African countries. African manufactured products therefore have better access to world markets especially in Europe and the US.
Crested Crane Connections Ltd welcomes and will assist foreign companies and individuals who would like to set up manufacturing ventures in East Africa.
