The East African Community (EAC) has been urged to move beyond agreements and policy commitments and ensure that regional integration delivers tangible benefits to businesses, investors, workers and consumers.

The call was made on Wednesday, September 2, during the East African Business Council (EABC) CEOs Trade and Investment Roundtable in Kigali, where policymakers and business leaders pointed to a persistent gap between the bloc's ambitious integration framework and the realities businesses continue to face when trading or investing across borders.

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The EAC has established a Customs Union and Common Market and committed to the free movement of goods, people, services and capital. Yet businesses still encounter border delays, non-tariff barriers, multiple charges, non-harmonised regulations and difficulties in obtaining recognition for licences and professional qualifications.

Dennis Karera, a Vice Chairperson of the East African Business Council (EABC), said businesses should be able to feel the benefits of regional integration in their day-to-day operations.

"East Africa must move from an EAC that is integrated on paper to an EAC that works in practice for businesses, investors, workers and consumers,” Karera said.

Intra-EAC trade has remained at around 15 percent of the region's total trade for more than a decade, despite the bloc's population of more than 300 million people and its growing economic potential.

Karera said the question is no longer whether East Africa has a market.

"We have the market. The question is whether we are doing enough to make that market work for East African businesses,” he said.

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For businesses, the challenges of regional integration are often measured in costs rather than policies.

"A truck delayed at a border means additional transport costs. Repeated inspections delay goods. Different licensing and regulatory requirements across Partner States increase the cost of expanding into new markets,” he said.

Karera argued that these challenges ultimately affect consumers as businesses pass additional costs through supply chains.

Flavia Busingye, the Director of Customs and Trade at the EAC Secretariat, made a similar call for the region to focus on implementation rather than commitments.

"The question before us is practical. Are our regional commitments reducing the time, cost and uncertainty of doing business? Are they enabling our enterprises to invest, produce, trade and create quality jobs?” she said.

She said the success of regional integration should not be judged by the number of meetings held or agreements signed, but by whether businesses are actually experiencing fewer barriers.

"A barrier is resolved when the agreed measure is implemented, and the affected business no longer experiences it,” Busingye said.

Beyond moving goods across borders, business leaders argued that the region should focus on building stronger regional value chains.

Karera said East African countries should stop viewing themselves primarily as competing national economies and instead connect their different strengths.

Under such an approach, raw materials could be produced in one country, processed in another, financed by a regional institution and sold across the wider EAC market.

"Instead of eight markets competing against one another, we should be building one East African production system. Rwanda, for instance, has opportunities in sectors including agro-processing, tourism, financial services, ICT, logistics and manufacturing, while other Partner States bring different strengths in agriculture, minerals, energy, manufacturing and access to regional and international markets,” he said.

The challenge, he said, is connecting those capabilities.

Busingye said the EAC should also focus on ensuring that its regulatory frameworks work consistently across the region, particularly in areas such as standards, customs procedures and market access.

Rwanda's private sector has previously raised concerns ranging from multiple weighbridges and repeated cargo scanning to road user charges, inconsistent border procedures and restrictions affecting products.

The EAC has introduced reforms including EACBond, a regional customs guarantee designed to reduce the need for multiple national transit bonds, and is working on greater customs-system interoperability and recognition of cargo scanner images.

The participants stressed that reforms will only matter if businesses experience the difference.

The roundtable called for stronger action to eliminate non-tariff barriers, harmonise standards and regulations, facilitate the movement of workers and service providers, and reduce the cost of cross-border trade.