President William Ruto has said the government of South Africa will lift the ban on Kenyan meat that has been in place for the past ten years.
The president, who was speaking at the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI) Annual General Meeting in Nairobi, announced that the deal was arrived at after consultations with his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa, with exports expected to resume in December 2022.
“Yesterday, we not only unlocked matters to do with travel, we eliminated barriers….We’ve had a 10-year ban on our meat products accessing the South African market. We have committed ourselves and yesterday in the evening, we got a brief from the ministers concerned that by December this year, the ban will be lifted so that our products can access the South African market,” said President Ruto.
Ruto said the ban on Kenyan meat and other agricultural products was founded on incoherent phytosanitary regulations between the two countries.
Read: VISA-Free Entry To South Africa Sets In After Bilateral Talks
He said the two administrations were working on a strategy to harmonize the regulations to ensure Kenyan products meet the South African requirements.
“We cannot sell our tea to South Africa. We have a challenge selling our pineapples and avocadoes. The issue was we are operating on different phytosanitary requirements. We are going to harmonize our phytosanitary regulations so that by January, we can be able to access the South African market as they access ours,” said Ruto.
Lifting of this ban is among the issues discussed between President Ruto and South Africa’s Ramaphosa during bilateral talks that took place at the statehouse on November 9.
Another breakthrough made in the talks is the Visa-free entry to South Africa for Kenyans from January 2023.
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