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The East African Community (EAC) has launched a campaign aimed at creating awareness of the agri-export trade opportunities that have been created through the EU-EAC Market Access Upgrade Programme (MARKUP).

Through the campaign, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the agricultural value chain, co-operatives and farmers, as well as government entities in the EAC will access information and tools on agri-export trade.

Speaking in Arusha at the launch of the campaign, Flavia Busingye, the Acting Director of Customs at the EAC Secretariat, said that MARKUP had created numerous trade opportunities for agri-SMEs in the region.

“The campaign ‘MARKUP: Growing agri-export markets’ aims to raise awareness of the opportunities in agricultural trade, and to demonstrate that international markets are within reach of East African exporters,” said Busingye.

She said that since its inception in 2018, MARKUP had generated useful resources for the growth of agri-exports in five EAC Partner States, namely Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania.

Busingye said that the programme, which is a collaborative initiative of the EAC, the EU, the German government and other development partners, has generated resources such as the EAC Quality Portal, the Financing Gateway and the Burundi Trade Information Portal.