MBALE, Uganda — The governments of Uganda and Kenya have signed a free trade agreement aimed at eliminating trade barriers and boosting economic cooperation.
The deal, signed last Friday, follows a directive by President Yoweri Museveni and his Kenyan counterpart, Dr. William Samoei Ruto. The two leaders met in Nairobi in late July and ordered their respective trade ministers to address all obstacles to bilateral trade.
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Kenyan Cabinet Secretary of Investments, Trade and Industry Lee Kinyanjui said the agreement will remove all trade barriers between the two countries.
“We have adopted that Kenya will treat products from Uganda as though they are from Kenya. So it will just be a transfer from Uganda to Kenya, or Kenya to Uganda, which means it will not attract any duties,” Kinyanjui said.
The agreement comes after previous trade disputes. In 2021, Kenya banned Ugandan eggs to protect its local poultry farmers, and in March, it briefly imposed a ban on Ugandan powdered milk.
Kinyanjui also said the countries will use technology and other measures to resolve logistical challenges that have caused long queues of cargo trucks at border crossings such as Malaba and Busia.
“We want to ensure that nobody wastes more than two hours at the border… so that our people can trade,” he said. He noted that trucks that used to make four round trips from Mombasa to Kampala had been reduced to two per month due to delays.
Today, with Uganda’s Minister for Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Hon. Gen. Wilson Mbadi, we issued a joint communiqué on resolved trade barriers between Kenya and Uganda.
Kenya and Uganda reached a joint agreement to remove the trade barriers and ease the movement of goods… pic.twitter.com/tzuG85mO8s
— Hon Lee Kinyanjui (@GovLeeKinyanjui) August 30, 2025
Gen. Wilson Mbasu Mbadi, Uganda’s State Minister for Trade, said the deal will help break down non-tariff barriers that have affected the movement of goods and services.
“We are now able to remove or break these non-tariff barriers that were coming through the levy of certain duties that go against the East African Community Treaty and Protocols,” he said.
As part of the agreement, Uganda committed to immediately address issues related to weighbridge operations along major trade corridors to facilitate faster movement of goods.
However, some truck drivers allege that Uganda Revenue Authority officers have been demanding bribes of 2,000 Ugandan shillings (about 50 cents) per truck to expedite clearance, which causes delays.
“They cannot allow you to proceed until you have paid the money,” a truck driver said on the sidelines of a meeting between the ministers last Friday.
Kinyanjui said a joint team has been formed to handle trade-related concerns.
