David Muwanga
4 November 2008
Kigali — KENYA should facilitate Mombasa Port to operate 24 hours, industrialist James Mulwana and chairman of the Commonwealth Business Forum has suggested.
Mulwana said the port was not operating 24 hours because of lack of modern equipment and personnel to clear the goods faster.
"Clearance and discharging of goods is slow at the port, yet in East Africa, we import 70% and export less," he said at the East Africa International Business Forum in Kigali, recently.
"As a result, a number of ships are being diverted to other ports, which increases the cost of doing business," Mulwana said in a presentation on the theme "Trade Facilitation in East Africa. One Market, One Destination."
He said the EAC should put in place policies to facilitate trade and speed up the growth of the region's economies.
"If clearing of goods takes weeks, this increases the costs to the manufacturer, the trader and the customer who does not get the product at the required time."
The Commonwealth Business Council director for international trade, David Wakerford, advised landlocked countries like Uganda and Rwanda to identify areas where there is need for improvement.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2008 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
