East Africa forms professional body to front market services

East African Business Council (EABC), in partnership with TradeMark East Africa (TMEA), has launched a regional professional body to foster a single and vibrant market for professional services in East Africa.The East African Professional Services Platform (EAPSP) was born out of the recognition of the critical importance of developing professional services along with other services sectors, to harness development of the East African Economy. “Services are key inputs to the overall economy and have a significant effect on the investment climate,” EAPSP Vice-chairman Patrick Obath told journalists at the launch of the body in Nairobi. Obath said services also contribute directly to job creation as well as, economic growth and development, adding that in the East African Community (EAC), services contribution to Gross Domestic Product (DGP) is over 50 percent.East African Platform for Professional services was established as a forum for convening and representing the interests of the professional services sector at the regional level. The platform aims to bring professional services issues to the forefront of policy agenda of the East African community. The mission of the platform is to foster a single integrated and vibrant market for professional services in East Africa. In reaching this goal, the Platform takes a two pronged approach which includes both policy level support as well as business level support. Obath said the platform will gather and collate information on trade in professional services, including current regulations and regulatory barriers affecting trade in professional services, and also provide relevant, up to date information on policy issues to different stakeholders, including policy makers, regulatory bodies, professional associations and the wider business community.“The regional market for professional services offers many opportunities therefore enhancing trade and investment in the EAC, “ said Kenya’s EAC Minister Musa Sirma.“It has the capacity to increase market efficiency, through the benefits of economies of scale and competition, which in turn lead to innovation, lower costs and availability of quality services,” Sirma added.The minister said the platform will be facilitating capacity building and technical support for professional associations and their respective regulatory bodies, including, but not limited to the area of mutual recognition agreements by pooling together technical expertise. It will also create networking opportunities for platform members to engage around common areas of focus and develop common policy positions that affect the professional services sector.Regional Director Private Sector & Civil Society Director, TMEA Lisa Karanja, said trade in services is progressively becoming one of the major drivers of the global economy and is integral to the growth of the East African Community.“The developing world is seeing a trend of increased dominance of service sectors in their economies. The East African region is no exception, boasting of services averaging 52 percent of GDP (gross domestic product) value added,” Karanja said.She said a competitive regional market that creates jobs and reduces poverty requires inter alia, enhanced access to services to support developing trade, and advancements have been made with the signing of mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) in 2011.