Impact Of East African Community Common Market On The Forest Products Trade In The EAC Region

Regional market integrations are considered as particularly important for economic development in African Countries.Most of the domestic markets are too small to bring the needed development and changes in different sectors of the African countries' economies.The national markets in African countries are too small to justify huge investments and having a high cost.The East African Community(EAC)common market represents the second step in the implementation of the treaty for the establishment of the East African Community integration after the Customs Union.Following its ratification by the EAC Partner States namely Burundi,Kenya Rwanda,Tanzania,and Uganda the EAC common market protocol entered into force in July 2010.The EAC Common Market aims at boosting productivity and trade among the member states by focusing mainly on four freedoms,namely the free movement of goods,free movement of labor,free movement of services,and free movement of capital.This study aimed at analyzing the Impact of East African Community Common Market on the forest products Trade and identifying factors influencing forest products trade among EAC Partner states,by firstly assessing the status and trends of forest resource in EAC region and each partner states,secondly looking the trend of forest product trade flows among the partner states,thirdly looking at trade trends of forest product between the EAC partner states and the rest of the world and lastly analyzing impacts of the EAC common market to the forest products trade in the EAC region for a period of the year 2000 to 2018 by using a gravity model.The study found the natural forest resource in the region is depleting although some countries like Kenya,Rwanda,and Burundi are regaining the area under natural forest.The membership to the EAC common market has been observed to have impact on forest products trade because countries who are member to the EAC common market have been observed to trade more of forets product mong themselves compared to trade between member country and non EAC member countries.Trade with the rest of the world,the EAC partner states have exported little of the forest products to countries outside the region compared to the importation from outside the region.For the factors influencing trade in the EAC region the GDPs,Population,distance,forest rents,common border,and common language has observed to have an impact on forest products trade in the EAC region.