As Kenya hosts the 24th COMESA Summit, Nairobi is positioning itself to attract tangible trade benefits, including deeper regional market access and digital trade facilitation, especially as President William Ruto becomes the chair of the trade body.
Kenya assumes the rotating chairmanship of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) from Burundi this week.
The Summit brings together heads of state, trade ministers, business leaders and diplomats from across the bloc, under the theme “Leveraging Digitalisation to Deepen Value Chains for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth”.
From Kenya’s perspective, the government is aiming to push for harmonised trade rules, elimination of non-tariff barriers, and digital transformation of customs and trade systems in order to boost intra-COMESA exports and local value addition.
Agriculture and Livestock Development Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe opened the COMESA–EU Horticulture Connect forum, emphasising Kenya’s ongoing investment in digital traceability systems and preferential market access for horticultural producers.
This is a marker of Kenya’s intent at the summit, where Kagwe also pressed member states to unify pesticide standards to enhance competitiveness within the region.
According to Trade Cabinet Secretary Lee Kinyanjui, who is leading the summit alongside side COMESA Secretariat, said the event will provide a platform for greater economic unity in Africa.
At the summit’s opening proceedings, CS Kinyanjui stressed horticulture’s potential as a growth engine. He said, “Horticulture is more than flowers, fruits, and vegetables. It is jobs for millions, empowerment for women and youth, foreign exchange for our economies, and a gateway to new markets.”
He also warned that unless member states break down non-tariff trade barriers and align standards, the internal COMESA market will remain under-leveraged.
Kenya’s trade goals at COMESA are built around securing freer access for Kenyan goods into regional markets, driving harmonisation of regulations and product standards and embedding digital tools in cross-border trade, such as e-certificates of origin and customs interoperability.
Furthermore, Kenya wants to campaign for the strengthening of value chains so that raw exports are replaced by higher-value processed products from the region.
The government sees direct benefits from the summit as being the expanded export volumes, growth for small and medium enterprises, jobs in manufacturing and agriculture, and greater inflows of foreign direct investment.
However, the region remains burdened by persistent non-tariff barriers, infrastructure gaps, logistics costs, and regulatory fragmentation.
This makes implementing any trade agreement across 21 member states an uphill task.
