East African business leaders and policy-makers are looking to better infrastructure in the region to help boost trade between countries.
Gathering in Dar es Salaam, under the Stanbic Bank banner on Tuesday this week, they explored fresh mutual trade opportunities. But infrastructure restrictions remained a huge headache, with officials calling for improved connectivity to boost business.
They spoke as China further underscored its growing influential role by announcing the completion of a major road bridge to further boost cross-border links in the region.
It came as Beijing said its contractors commissioned to build the 3.2-kilometre-long Magufuli Bridge across the southern part of Lake Victoria in Tanzania had finished their work.
According to the official news site of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), People's Daily Online, "the last tank of cement was poured on October 6" to formally signify completion of the project which is seen as key to facilitating faster movement and delivery of goods between Tanzania Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
Infrastructural expansion and upgrades was one of the main talking points at the Dar summit which also covered topics related to building new trade and energy partnerships with a sharper uptake of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations.
Goolam Ballim, chief economist of the Standard Bank Group, said in a keynote address that Beijing's "buoyancy" in addressing such infrastructural gaps in the region and sub-Saharan Africa in general was likely to grow stronger in coming years, contributing to a new wave of optimism for countries that are in line to benefit in terms of GDP growth.
"We have seen the Chinese economy recently inject enormous amounts of fresh stimulus for its African connection which is unprecedented in about a decade, and many think will be enduring," Mr Ballim said.
"This increased level of verve has a very favourable glow on the continent and means we at Stanbic will probably be reframing our modelling of GDP projections for our client countries and the wider African region," he added.
Current intra-East African Community (EAC) trade figures presented at the convention show that volumes grew by 11.2 percent from $9.81 billion to $10.9 billion between 2021 to 2022, representing a two-fold increase from $5.4 billion in the four years since 2018.
According to Patrick Mweheire, Standard Bank Group's regional chief executive for East Africa, the region has become the fastest growing in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of economic growth and EA countries are now trading among themselves "at about double the rate that other African countries do."
The total value of intra-EA trade currently stands at $520 billion per year and five of the continent's seven fastest growing country GDPs are from the region, led by Ethiopia and followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.
"Ethiopia's future admission to the formal EAC bloc may still be under discussion, but whether it eventually joins or not is irrelevant because trade between that country and others within the bloc is already happening a lot and many of these borders are artificial anyway," Mr Mweheire said.
Delegates drawn from governments, private sector and trade facilitation lobby groups in the region also highlighted persistent challenges still negating intra-EAC trade despite much rhetoric about regional integration and strategized on solutions.
The deliberations added to ongoing conversations around the continuing existence of non-tariff barriers, competition and lack of synergy between regional trade corridors, regular country-to-country trade disputes over specific products, and growing concerns about a general decline in individual government commitments to integration goals.
According to Stanbic, the plan is to hold the EA business summit annually in order to capitalise on the region's emergence as a continental leader in terms of economic growth. The next summit is scheduled to be held in Kampala, Uganda in October 2025.
