[Kenya – UK]
Despite having a lower middle-income economy, the UK has established a window for Kenyan items including clothing and agricultural products to benefit from lower or nil tariffs.
This week, the UK designated 65 developing nations as recipients of a new bilateral trade agreement that lowers import duties on thousands of items from some of the world’s poorest nations in an effort to strengthen commercial ties, including Kenya’s neighbors Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and South Sudan. Kenya, however, was not included since it had been moved up from the list of the least developed nations.
However, according to a new agreement made under the Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS), three nations, including Uganda, Kenya’s main trading partner in the area, are now able to import products from Kenya and re-export them duty-free to the UK.
According to the agreement, Kenya’s neighboring LDCs—least developed countries—will be permitted to purchase commodities in Kenya and export completed items to the UK.
This entails that LDCs may engage in value chains comprising components from 95 different nations and yet export their finished goods duty-free to the UK, according to the UK.
If products are duty-free in the EPA between the UK and Kenya and fulfill the EPA PSRs, an Ethiopian exporter to the UK, for instance, will be permitted to utilize materials from Kenya (an EPA nation) and consider those materials as coming from Ethiopia.
