NAIROBI, (The Southern African Times) – Kenya and Pakistan are set to sign a raft of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) by the end of 2021 in order to boost bilateral trade.
Betty Maina, Kenya’s cabinet secretary of the Ministry of Industrialization, Trade and Enterprise Development said Tuesday that two agreements on plant protection on mangoes and citrus importation from Pakistan have been finalized and are ready for signing.
“Kenya has also prepared and shared two MoUs on avocados and nuts exports to Pakistan for the review and we anticipate they will be concluded by the end of this year,” Maina said.
On technical standards, both nations have also agreed to strengthen collaboration in areas of standardization, conformity assessment, sharing of technical information and training of each other’s personnel in the field of standards.
“An MoU between Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) and Pakistan Standard Quality and Control Authority (PSQCA) on matters of standards will be signed soon,” she added.
Kenya’s official data indicates that total trade between the east African nation and Pakistan was valued at 77.4 billion shillings (705 million U.S. dollars) in 2020.
Maina observed that bilateral trade is in favor of Kenya with exports to Pakistan reaching 506 million dollars in 2020.
Saqlain Syedah, Pakistan High Commissioner to Kenya said that her country imports about 40 percent of all Kenya tea exports and is currently the fourth largest export destination for Kenya goods.
Syedah said that Pakistan has already removed an attestation fee of tea export documents for Kenyan tea in order to boost trade in the agricultural commodity.
