The East African Community (EAC) is set to launch its fourth development strategy (2011-2020) focusing on boosting industry, energy, agriculture and food security.
Speaking in Arusha yesterday during the opening session of the EAC pre-budget conference, EAC deputy secretary-general charged with Finance and Administration, Dr Julius Rotich said the strategy would take a long-term view, spanning the EAC’s second decade.
“This will be a decade of concretising the community. It will involve a rigorous application to the challenges of the socio-economic transformation of East Africa,” he said. However, he did give the exact time-frame for the strategy.
Dr Rotich informed the delegates from all five partner states (Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi) that the strategy would come with ambitious plans to implement various master plans in industrial development, energy, as well as agriculture and food security.
“Individually, and collectively, the partner states are determined to achieve the status of a middle income economy between 2020 and 2030; and to move our region from a largely agricultural economy to industrial based economy,” he said.
Dr Rotich expressed his hope that the implementation of the strategy would stimulate investments, promote employment and growth; and lead to increased diversification as well as major transformation of the region’s economy, including poverty reduction.
The official further noted that great EAC challenge was sensitised and motivated to access the advantages and opportunities coming with the regional bloc’s common market protocol.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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