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Trade among East African Community (EAC) member has suffered a catastrophic blow losing USD380 million in the span of just a single week.

There is not an economy that has not taken a hit from the coronavirus pandemic and the EAC trade bloc is no exception. While no official order has been issued to close their borders, each of the EAC member countries has limited all manner of movement, goods included.

Trucks are still going through to deliver goods but as Tanzania and Burundi agreed last week, the truck drivers would stay quarantined for 14 days. While for Kenya on the other hand, the country has chosen to escort the drivers and their tracks to their points of drop off and back, no detours allowed.

While cargo on transit has been forced to slow down to almost a snail pace, movement of people has come to a complete stop, if …

The Bank of Uganda held its benchmark interest rate yet in an effort to keep inflation down and below target and to support economic growth.

The central bank rate (CBR) was kept unchanged at 9 per cent, initially set in October 2019 and maintained in December. The band on the CBR was maintained at positive or negative 3 percentage points while the rediscount rate remained at 13 per cent and the bank rate remained 14 per cent.

“The evaluation of the macroeconomic developments and outlook based on the available information set suggests that, at the current CBR, the monetary policy stance is accommodative and that inflation will converge to target in the medium term while supporting economic growth,” said the monetary policy statement explaining the decision.

The Bank said that Uganda’s economy is expected to expand at between 5.5 and 6 per cent in the 2019 fiscal year, which runs …