Ruto rules on sugar imports endorsed

The Government has endorsed plans to auction sugar import rights after it was established that they posed no risk to an agreement that Kenya has with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa).

Plans to auction the licences is part of a raft of new regulations that Agriculture minister, Mr William Ruto, gazetted last week in an attempt to streamline the sugar industry operations.

Under the new regulations, Mr Ruto wants the import rights to be auctioned to registered importers seeking to bring in consignments under the Comesa mutual tariff concession.

Imports of raw or milled white and refined sugar outside the Comesa mutual tariff concession will, however, not be subject of the auction system.

“The rights shall be sold in lots of 500 tonnes. The bid price of the right shall be determined by the difference between average ex-factory price of domestic sugar and the Cost of Insurance and Freight (CIF) landed in Mombasa plus Import Duty Fee (IDF) of imported sugar,” the notice said.

The highest bidder at the auction shall be the person offering the largest margin.

Implementation of the new reform-driven rules had until this week looked dim after Attorney-General Amos Wako termed them “illegal”, arguing they could provoke a major trade war with Comesa — Kenya’s largest market — because they would act as non-trade barriers (NTBs) in the marketplace.

On Wednesday, Ministry of Trade officials said the auction system had been approved and that deliberations on other reform measures was continuing.

source:bdafrica