The free movement of goods and persons within the East African Community, EAC, remains a major challenge despite member states having signed the common market protocol more than ten years ago.
Now, the community is calling for the continent to liberalize trade.
Among those attending the summit are private sector businesses, companies, and EAC ministers from Uganda and Burundi.
They'll be participating in several seminars to promote economic growth within the East African Community, including tax regime harmonization in the EAC, investments opportunities in the region — including how to make the EAC a leading destination for foreign investors, climate change, agriculture, women and youth in business among other topics.
Ezekiel Nibigira, the Burundi minister for East African Community Affairs and the current chair of the EAC Council of Ministers, said, "Every African nation should make every effort to reduce at the maximum, Non-Tariff Barriers at the borders, and within nations and regions to create a conducive environment for business people to trade across borders."
All members of the EAC have already ratified the African Continental Free Trade Area, an agreement that 43 African countries have ratified which aims to eliminate tariffs on most goods and services in Africa.
FILE - Rwanda's President Paul Kagame gestures after signing the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement during the 10th Extraordinary Session of the African Union (AU) in Kigali, Rwanda, Wednesday, March 21, 2018.
Sanjay Rughani, the CEO of Standard Chartered Bank in Uganda, called for stakeholders invloved in trade and investment to rethink the definition of border.
"For everybody in the job who is trying to facilitate trade and investment within our region," he said, "the standard border for them should be East Africa ... Why are you talking about European business models and Asian business models? Because they embrace that (their continents) as the border."
Despite the challenges of Non-Tariff Barriers in the region, the EAC recorded an increase of 15% in intra-regional trade in 2023 compared to 2022.
Nibigira says that African Continental Free Trade Area is what member states should look up to.
"The Africa Continental Free Trade Area," he said, "requires that each country has gained capabilities to get what to offer in this market. It has to be a fair market whereby every partner state has products and services not only to offer but also to take."
With more than 40 African countries ratifying the African Continental Free Trade Area, when implemented, will create within the continent a single market of more than 1.4 billion people.