Kenya will this year import 90,000 tonnes of sugar from Uganda and source at least 160,000 tonnes from other countries after exhausting its Comesa import quota for 2020.

This is after Uganda, through the Uganda Manufacturers Association, told Kenya that it has enough sugar both for domestic and export markets and denied importing sugar from outside the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa).

Kenya has been importing 350,000 tonnes from within EAC and Comesa due to a widened deficit in its local market.

“We are considering importing 90,000 tonnes of sugar from Uganda,” said Ms Betty Maina, the Kenya Cabinet Secretary for Industry, Trade and Enterprise Development.

We are considering, she said, importing sugar from Uganda under Comesa and the EAC and the imports would not be affected by the exhaustion of allocated quota under Comesa safeguard for 2020,” Ms Rosemary Owino, the head of the Sugar Directorate, Agriculture and Food Authority, in Kenya’s Ministry of Trade, said.

Mr Daniel Birungi, the UMA chief executive officer, said Uganda had a lot more sugar than the 90,000 tonnes earmarked for export to Kenya, noting this had already been verified.