Sweden Starts Open Gate System for EA Traders
 

By MARTIN ADHOLA
AWC FEATURES

EAST AFRICA'S business community is to benefit from Open Gate trade system, currently being developed by the Swedish government.

Under the system, the Swedish Customs Department intends to provide potential exporters to its market with a one-stop information centre to hasten the movement of exports into the country.

The open-gate system is expected to be fully operational by this month.

Marcus Hellqvist, head of secretariat at the Customs Union department in the National Board of Trade, said recently that a dispersed information system within the Swedish trade system had slowed down trade especially from the developing countries.

"Over the years, we have witnessed a slowdown of exports from the developing countries into Sweden not due to barriers of trade but mainly because of lack of information on the availability of certain markets in our country," he said.

According to Mr Hellqvist, the initiative targets sub-Saharan African countries mainly Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya, where he says the small and medium scale industry has great potential to reach international markets.

"There is a thriving small-scale industry in this country that has a great potential of expanding into the international markets if they are given correct and accurate information on the existing markets out there."

Other countries that are being considered are South Africa, which is seen as the frontrunner trade on the the continent. Ulrika Lyckman-Alnered, a senior advisor at the National Board of Trade, said the programme is intended to help businessmen and women intending to enter the Swedish market to deal with the bureaucracy involved in licensing acquisition and other related information.

Ms Lyckman-Alnered said women, who are the majority of small-scale traders in the country, were not getting the correct information on markets available in the developing world for their products.

She said, "Women are the majority traders in the small and medium scale sector and their business has considerably slowed down because of lack of information on markets available for their products abroad."

In the first quarter of the year, exports from Kenya to the Swedish market amounted to Ksh870 million ($850,000) compared with exports of Ksh1 billion ($12.5 million) from Sweden market to Kenya.

Items exported by Kenya are mainly vegetables and coffee while Swedish exports include machinery, vehicles, drugs, paper and pulp.

According to a survey conducted by the World Bank in 2002, enhanced market access for the poorest developing countries will provide them with the means to harness trade for development and poverty reduction. 

The report says that offering the poorest countries duty and quota-free access to world markets will greatly benefit these countries at little cost to the rest of the world. The recent market-opening initiatives of the EU and some other countries is an important steps, it adds. 

"In order to be completely effective, such access should be made permanent, extended to all goods and accompanied by simple, transparent rules of origin. This will give the poorest countries the confidence to persist with difficult domestic reforms and ensure effective use of debt relief and aid flows," says the report.

The survey adds that the developing countries themselves have high tariffs that limit trade amongst them. The average tariff in developing countries is 14 per cent, and in the least developed countries, 17.9 per cent, compared with 5.2 per cent in the industrialised countries. 

It says the Open Gate System will not interfere with the EU export rules that have in the past been a major hindrance to exports from East Africa.

"The Open Gate system is not in any way intended to bend the rules that are in place by the EU. What we intend to do is provide another platform where traders can learn about the markets through updated information in advance," she said.

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