Northern Corridor Map
By ADAM IHUCHA
The East African Business Council (EABC) has commissioned a
study to identify the investments opportunities for private sector to unlock
economic potential along the northern corridor.
The northern corridor is the transport corridor linking the
Great Lakes countries of Burundi, D. R. Congo, Rwanda and Uganda to the Kenyan
seaport of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean coast.
Lilian Awinja, the Chief Executive Officer for the EABC says
that the lobby wants to ascertain the specific projects where the private
sector can profitably invest along the corridor.
Ms Awinja says that in order for the private sector to fully
take advantage of the opportunities under the Northern Corridor Projects
Implementation (NCIP), it was imperative for them to have clear information.
“Our study would come up with report on the opportunities, the
magnitude of the projects, available incentives in the different countries and
under the NCIP initiative, the cost of the projects among other issues within
the itemized investment areas” she explains.
The study
is expected to establish a number of warehouses needed along the standard gauge
railway (SGR) from Mombasa to Kigali and Juba, and the cost implication.
It would
also identify the quantities of materials needed for the construction of the
railway and the cost of each material.
On refined petroleum products pipeline extension-
Eldoret-Kampala-Kigali---the study would pinpoint the opportunities suitable
for public-private-partnership concept (PPP).
“The study should identify what is needed and in what quantities
and what cost, for instance, for PPP what should be the private sector
contribution” Ms Awinja notes.
It should
also identify the gaps, challenges, obstacles, barriers to private sector
taking up the investment opportunities if any including cross border
impediments and suggest recommendations on how these may be resolved.
In the 9th Summit of the
Northern Corridor, which took place in March 2015 in Kigali, Rwanda, the Heads
of State requested EABC to coordinate and ensure that the private sector
participates and takes full advantage of the northern corridor integration
projects and the accruing benefits from this initiative.
During the 10th Summit held in June 2015 in
Kampala, Uganda, the Heads of State further requested the private sector to
identify the investment projects that they could take up as public private
partnerships or as private sector projects.
The summit highlighted
opportunity areas including oil pipeline and refinery, standard
gauge railway (SGR), telecommunication networks and charges.
Others were broadband strategy, roads, regional data centres,
electrification, automation of immigration processes, establishing commodity
exchange platform and Internet connectivity.
The northern corridor also serves northern Tanzania, South Sudan
and Ethiopia.
It is the busiest corridor in East and Central Africa handling
about 12 million tons of import/export cargo of the stated countries.
The corridor also handles a substantial volume of intra-regional
trade. Studies however show that the economic potential of the region is yet to
be fully unlocked.
It is envisaged that infrastructural inter-connectivity in the
corridor would lead to reduced cost of production and increased business and
trading opportunities that could become an ingredient for creation of wealth
and the reduction of poverty in the region.
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