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EU POLITICS<br />
How Brexit<br />
will affect<br />
Kenya<br />
J<br />
une 23rd 2016 marked the day that<br />
Britain made an official exit from the<br />
European Union - a day that will<br />
forever go down in history. This<br />
decision caused widespread<br />
panic, especially among the<br />
African nations, due to their huge reliance on<br />
Britain.<br />
For Kenya, one of the greatest impacts Brexit has<br />
had is on the flower industry with more than a third<br />
of all flowers sold in Europe coming from Kenya. A<br />
butterfly effect has unsettled the market owing to<br />
the fact that UK is the second largest buyer after<br />
Netherlands.<br />
Despite all these setbacks that resulted from the<br />
Brexit, all hope is not lost.<br />
1<br />
A set of agreements between regional African<br />
blocs and the European Union, as well as<br />
between African countries themselves have<br />
and will curb the negatives. A solid example is the<br />
Tripartite Free Trade Area Agreement that creates a<br />
free-trade zone stretching from Cape Town to Cairo,<br />
covering 26 countries and representing almost half<br />
of African Union member states.<br />
2<br />
Brexit could also possibly result in fairer<br />
trade deals for Africa, both with Britain and<br />
the EU. But until Britain’s post-Brexit trade<br />
policy is established, it is not possible to assess<br />
how progressive it may be. A slightly debilitated<br />
EU however, may be forced to compromise more,<br />
enabling African countries to secure fairer deals.<br />
3<br />
For the UK and its African Commonwealth<br />
partners, stronger trade relationships are<br />
mutually beneficial. British officials have<br />
suggested that African farmers could benefit in any<br />
new trade deal with the UK because they could<br />
sell their produce at rates that would be attractive<br />
to the UK market. For Kenya and South Africa,<br />
whose roses and wine respectively are popular in<br />
the UK, Brexit could mean an end to the restrictive<br />
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).<br />
4<br />
Finally, the pound is not so sterling anymore.<br />
As of September 2016, buying the pound<br />
currently stands at Kshs 131.34. This is good<br />
news for importers seeing that the exchange rate<br />
has drastically plummeted. The bad news is that<br />
exporters will earn less in Kenya shillings!<br />
Ksh23bn<br />
The<br />
amount Kenya exports to two of the biggest European destinations, the UK<br />
and the Netherlands. Trading statistics for the first quarter of this year show<br />
that the two EU states together accounted for 18.3 per cent of total exports.<br />
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