The East African Community Secretariat has developed a comprehensive strategy to boost intra EAC trade in fruits and vegetables. EAC Deputy Secretary-General Christophe Bazivamo said that the fruits and vegetables value chain intra-trade strategy and action plan for 2021 to 2031 is projected to reach $25m in value with global exports attaining 51.3bn.
The plan was unveiled at the EAC public-private dialogue on fruits and vegetables, where he said the EAC Secretariat worked on the trade of fruits and vegetables intra-trade issue as commerce at present stands at 59.9m.
More investments are needed in nutritional and medicinal indigenous fruits and vegetable plants sub- sector, so as to improve production capacity, strengthen research and development, innovation, packaging, market access and trade facilitation.
Other envisaged aspects are quality infrastructure, skills, policy coordination and elaborating a trade framework, he stated, highlighting that EAC bloc global exports of vegetables are billed to grow to $950m and fruits to $350m by 2031 from 5416m and 5125m respectively, at present.
Source: ippmedia.com