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Kenya demands same market access to EU as neighbours
NAIROBI, July 27 (WorldACD) – Kenya has been promised the same level of access to EU markets as received by its poorer neighbours Uganda and Tanzania once a new trade deal takes effect in 2008, Kenya’s trade minister Mukhisa Kituyi announced this week.
The EU is negotiating new economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries to replace the Cotonou Agreement that guarantees preferential access for their goods into Europe until the end of 2007.
Kenya has been pushing for the conclusion of the negotiations, saying its exporters could otherwise be placed at a disadvantage compared with countries like Tanzania and Uganda, reported the East African Standard.
Unlike Kenya, they are classified as least developed countries (LDCs), they are guaranteed duty-free market access for their goods into the EU.
"We have received in writing a commitment from the EU that when the EPAs we’re negotiating formally come into force, Kenya will have equal market access...as if it was an LDC," Kituyi said. "We don’t have to recategorise ourselves as poorer than we are in order to get the market access of the poorer countries."
Last month the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, urged African countries to agree on the new trade arrangement with Europe by the end of the year or risk losing valuable commerce.
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