President William Ruto has picked five cabinet secretaries to sit in the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) council which brings together other representatives from the East African Community and their counterparts from the European Union (EU).
Through the Kenya Gazette notice dated Friday, November 22, 2024, the Head of State fronted Salim Mvurya – Cabinet Secretary of Investment, Trade and Industry as the co-chairperson to the council.
Other CSs trusted by President Ruto to negotiate on behalf of the country include Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, Treasury CS John Mbadi, Agriculture CS Andrew Karanja and his Climate and Forestry counterpart Aden Duale.
“Pursuant to the establishment of the EPA Council in the Economic Partnership Agreement between Kenya, a Member of the East African Community, on the one part, and the European Union, on the other part; it is notified for the general information to the public that five appointed members of the EPA Council representing Kenya,” the gazette notice read in part.
The five CSs are expected to pitch for Kenya and help achieve long-term objectives of breaking into various markets in the European Union states led by the United Kingdom.
The council
The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), was signed on December 8, 2020 and ratified in March 2021.
It was established majorly to provide full duty-free and quota-free market access conditions for goods originating in the EAC Partner States into the market of the UK on a secure, long- term and predictable basis.
The drafters of the agreement also pushed to preserve and improve market access conditions to ensure that Kenya fully benefits from the EPA.
Basically, EPA’s main objective is to provide a good framework for strengthening the strategic cooperation between Kenya and the UK in the areas of trade, investment, research, innovation and development, value addition and capacity building, among others.
“The Economic partnership agreement allows Kenya and UK to maintain trade relations post Brexit and grants Kenyan goods, particularly horticulture exports duty-free access to the UK,” the Ministry of Trade said in a statement during former Trade CS Moses Kuria’s tenure.
“Through the EPA agreement, Kenya and UK have undertaken operations on market access and business environment issues having held discussions in March 2022 as well as the Trade and Business environment road show in the UK,” the statement added.
Kenya would be banking on the outcome of various council meetings to create more opportunities for trade between the country and other nations which are members of the EU.
