Nairobi — The East African community partners might not sign a trade deal with the European Union (EU) after sharp differences emerged during a technical experts meeting in Arusha last week.

The meeting, attended by permanent secretaries from trade related ministries, failed to agree on a consensus text agreed during the Heads of State extraordinary meeting early last month.

"We are concerned over the slow pace in arriving at a common position towards implementing the decision to negotiate an EAC-EPA with the European Union," Mr Arun Devani, the chairman of the Arusha based East African Business Council, said in a statement.

"Despite the Partner States agreeing in principle to negotiate EPAs under the EAC configuration and developing a commendable draft negotiation framework at that, mindful of the current sensitivities arising from their previous EPA negotiations under two different configurations, (that is ESA and SADC), the partner states upheld the immediate decisions to configure to the EAC bloc preferring more time to consult," he said.

However, the Permanent Secretary ministry of Trade and Industry, Mr David Nalo, while opening a high level consultative forum on EPA at a Nairobi hotel said that it is important that the EPAs agreement are concluded by the deadline of December 31 this year.

"The EU has been one of the leading markets for Kenya's export products. The value of exports to EU rose from Sh66.9 billion in 2005 to Sh71.4billion in 2006, a growth by 4.7per cent," he said

"ESA member states are committed to signing the EPA by December 31. However, we are at different stages of completing the mandated preparatory work. The negotiating team requires your guidelines in the event that the EPA is not signed by deadline," Nalo told stakeholders in the EPA negotiations committee.

Nalo said that in preservation of the intent of Cotonou Agreement that ' no country will be worse off than it currently is' after the conclusion of an EPA, Kenya is pursuing the marketing diversification by deepening linkages in the regional market in various fields where EPA, in pursuit of an EPA with the EC, is charting regional positions geared toward regional preferences for the sake of enhancing intra-regional trade in goods and services in support of economic growth and development.

Devani says it is the view of EABC that "other options" may stimulate the sensitivities, which dominated and caused EAC Partner States to continue negotiating under different configurations. EABC's other main concern is the delay and the worrying situation in which the region finds itself.

"Today, we have less than 90 days to the conclusion of the negotiations with EU. If we do not move fast, the business community may be dealt a great blow when the current preferential trading regime expires on December 31".

"If the EAC Partner States fail to meet the negotiations deadline, we may face the consequences of trading with the EU in competition, on equal terms, with all other developing countries under the Generalised System of Preferences scheme, which is consistent with the international rules of trade," Devani added.

He said the situation creates uncertainty amongst the wider business community of EAC".