The implementation of the East African common market will start in January 2010. This was revealed this week by the President’s special envoy to the Great Lakes region Dr. Richard Sezibera.

He was opening a two-day workshop on Liberalization of Services in the East African Community at La Palisse Hotel-Nyandungu.

The workshop, organized by the Regional Integration Committee, aimed at formulating Rwanda’s position on liberalization of the service sector in the regional bloc.

Sezibera stressed that the Common Market negotiations are focused mainly on the free movement of goods, persons (right to residence and establishment), workers, as well as services and capital.

"In this regard, all EAC Partner States have nominated experts who are currently handling all matters of Common market negotiations and they have been given a deadline of December 2008 to conclude technical negotiations,” he said.

He noted that liberalizing the service sector would improve both access and efficiency and reduce costs while increasing quality.

"The service sector is the most important sector for most developing economies. It is the largest contributor to gross domestic product, production and employment…since it is such an important sector, we need to identify comparative advantage in the services sector,” he said. 

He added that export of many services is limited by many restrictions imposed by some trading partners of the member states through domestic regulations.

Sezibera pointed out that Rwanda needed to increase export revenues and expand her economies by identifying restrictions and removing them.

He said Rwanda’s focus in the negotiations is mainly on Telecommunication, Transport, Tourism, Insurance and Financial Services.

"Inputs from different stakeholders dealing in the above sectors will play a critical role in helping Rwanda negotiators get a deeper and broader understanding of their own nation’s interests,” observed Antoine Ruvebana, the Secretary General in the Ministry of Commerce, Industry Investment Promotion and Tourism. The service sector also ranks high in employment generation with 16% of total employment after agriculture.

Ruvebana said Rwanda has embarked on a number of reforms that have unilaterally liberalized some aspects of its services sector citing Hotel and Restaurant services. He stressed that the liberation of services must be accompanied by effective regulation to maximize the gains and minimize the bad effects.

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