By William Madouk<\/p>\n
East African Community (EAC) has tabled before its Legislative Assembly (EALA) a budget totaling to US $103,842,880 for Financial Year 2023\/2024. <\/strong><\/p>\n This year\u2019s budget is an increase from the amount of US$91,579,215 approved by the August House for the 2022\/2023 Financial Year.<\/p>\n The Chairperson of the Council of Ministers and Burundi\u2019s Minister for EAC Affairs, Dr. Ez\u00e9chiel Nibigira, said that the budget comes at a time when the EAC economies were experiencing global shocks.<\/p>\n While tabling the budget, Mr. Nibigira stated that those shocks arise from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, tight global financial conditions, lingering effects of Covid-19 and the impact of climate change.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite these challenges, economic growth in the region improved to 4.8 percent in 2022 from 3.5 percent in 2021,\u201d said Dr. Nibigira, who is also minister of youth and sport.<\/p>\n The strong growth in the region was supported by the good performance of the industry, services, construction, mining and manufacturing sectors.<\/p>\n \u201cGlobal economic growth is expected to remain weak, mainly due to anti-inflationary measures and geopolitical risks,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n He projected a positive outlook for EAC economies, largely driven by the strong performance of the services sector, prudent government policies and increased public and private investment.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, downside risks remain, attributed to weaker global growth, tight financial conditions and climate change risks,\u201d Nibigira noted.<\/p>\n He also disclosed that the EAC total trade increased by 13.4 percent to US$74.03 billion in 2022 from US$65.268 billion in 2021.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2022, EAC total exports to the rest of the world were valued at US$20.139 billion, while total imports from the rest of the world into the EAC amounted to US$53.891 billion. Further, total intra-EAC trade grew by 11.2 percent to US$10.910 billion in 2022 from US$9.810 billion in 2021,\u201d minister continued.<\/p>\n The major Intra-EAC traded products are cereals, cement, iron and steel, live animals, petroleum products, sugar, foods and beverages, signifying that the economies are Agro-based with good signs of moving to industry-based.\u201d<\/p>\n The Budget has been allocated to the EAC Organs and Institutions as follows; EAC Secretariat – US$50,931,553, East African Court of Justice – US$4,450,488 and East African Legislative Assembly – US$17,681,365.<\/p>\n Others include Lake Victoria Basin Commission – US$8,471,980, Inter-University Council for East Africa – US$12,394,945, Lake Victoria Fisheries Organisation: US$2,807,993 and East African Science and Technology Commission – US$2,016,543.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, East African Kiswahili Commission – US$1,502,535, East African Health Research Commission – US$2,193,811, and East African Competition Authority – US$1,391,667.<\/p>\n Minister cited that they focus on nine areas: strengthening of regional governance processes, and domestication of regional and international commitments for sustainable peace and stability.<\/p>\n And harmonization of trade-related policies, laws and regulations, and streamlining of customs and trade facilitation systems for increased trade and investment.<\/p>\n Others include the harmonization of fiscal and monetary policies, and the establishment of requisite institutions towards the realization of the East African Monetary Union – leveraging modern technologies to enhance productivity, value addition, and to promote regional supply and value chains and digital platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By William Madouk East African Community (EAC) has tabled before its Legislative Assembly (EALA) a budget totaling to US $103,842,880 for Financial Year 2023\/2024. This year\u2019s budget is an increase from the amount of US$91,579,215 approved by the August House for the 2022\/2023 Financial Year. The Chairperson of the Council[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-regional"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/EAC.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14803,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14801\/revisions\/14803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}