As the East African Community expands its frontiers to Somalia and widens the regional market by an additional 18 million people, economic experts say that Uganda should now position itself for trade in which it holds a comparative advantage if it is to gain fully.
On Friday, the 23rd meeting of regional heads of state in Arusha, Tanzania, it was resolved to formally admit Somalia into the East African Community, making it the 8th country to join the economic bloc, after DR Congo.
The admission brought to an end an 11-year quest to join the 300 million East African Community population. The State Minister for Trade Harriet Ntabaazi says that the move is a blessing to Uganda and to the regional economic bloc.
Even with the enviable expanded market, non-tariff barriers and other factors continue to baffle the economic block.
There have been concerns over the choice of investments that are taken by the different countries in these new markets and some choose to set up banks while others choose to take their physical products. So what is in it for Uganda?
Experts insist that for Uganda to benefit from this market, it should do so tactfully.
While the challenges such as low budgetary funding for the EAC secretariat, and insecurity continue in some of the member countries, there is hope that expanded market size will increase the bloc's bargaining power and boost its capacity for regional peacekeeping missions
