Effect of EAC single customs territory on trade facilitation in Rwanda

By Dr. Jean Paul MPAKANIYE

East African Community (EAC) is an organization of east African countries composed by 6 countries including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan. Single customs territory (SCT) was adopted as the stage towards full attainment of the customs union achievable by the removal of restrictive regulations of internal border controls on goods moving between the member states with an ultimate realization of free circulation of goods. This study intended to analyze the effect of EAC single customs territory on trade facilitation in Rwanda. Descriptive research design was adopted and both primary and secondary data were collected using documentation, interview and questionnaire.372 cross-border traders were selected out of 5,313 traders who crossed the border. The major findings revealed that based on the regression results, R-square of 0.99 show 99% of the variation in the traders facilitated trough the change on the administration costs, business costs, declaration agencies and repo rate. For further improve the cross border services and continue to facilitate the cross border traders, some recommendations have been proposed : government should increase many efforts on the policy of tax incentives on the investments for the traders who transfer the goods to Rwanda from EAC members.

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