Overview of trade between Kenya and members of the East African Community (EAC)

Key Messages

Kenya has been a net exporter of goods with the rest of the EAC for the past five years. Exports and imports reached $1.4 billion and $620 million, respectively, as of 2019.
Kenya exports a diverse range of products to the EAC. The top exports include medicaments, oil, salt, cement, steel and beer. Kenya may boost efforts to increase exports of edible food preparations, margarine, soap and skin care products, footwear, fertilisers, and containers and bags for packaging of goods – products for which there is increasing demand in the EAC and/or increasing efficiency in Kenya.
Kenyan exporters to the EAC face specific challenges to trading within the region, including informality of cross-border trade, poor infrastructure and non-tariff barriers.
Kenya has made efforts to boost its exports to the EAC and to Africa more widely, as reflected in the government’s medium-term plans, engagement in the EAC customs union and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) free trade area, and the draft national African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) strategy. These efforts can be complemented by supporting informal micro, small and medium-sized enterprises or firms producing products for which there is growing demand from the EAC.

This policy brief is extracted from a SET paper ‘Promoting Kenya’s exports: a country- and product-specific analysis’. It is a part of an emerging analysis series that focuses on Kenya’s trade with the EAC, the rest of Africa, European Union, United Kingdom, United States, China and India.

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Authors

Sherillyn Raga

Maximiliano Mendez-Parra

Dirk Willem te Velde