The Common External Tariff (CET) of the East African Community (EAC) customs union has long been considered the cornerstone of the most successful example of regional integration in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we assess the implementation of the EAC-CET using a novel dataset of country- and firm-level deviations from the common tariff regime constructed by digitizing information in gazettes published by the Secretariat of the EAC between 2009 and 2019. Employing these data, we present five patterns on EAC tariff policy: (i) increased usage of country-level deviations from the common tariff regime render the EAC-CET less and less ‘common’; (ii) Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda predominantly use unilateral deviations to increase external protection while Rwanda mostly decreases tariffs; (iii) Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda increase tariffs for the same classes of products, but target different industries; (iv) unilateral tariff reductions at the country level are mostly used to facilitate access to inputs; (v) data on firm-level exemptions suggest that private sector development in the EAC would benefit from lower tariffs on intermediate inputs. Our findings demonstrate an incipient but clear trend in the EAC away from a communal tariff regime and towards national and more protectionist trade policies.

中文翻译：

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取消关税同盟：东非共同体的区域（解体）一体化

东非共同体（EAC）关税同盟的共同对外关税（CET）长期以来一直被认为是撒哈拉以南非洲地区一体化最成功范例的基石。在本文中，我们使用由 EAC 秘书处在 2009 年至 2019 年间发布的公报中的信息数字化构建的国家和公司层面偏离共同关税制度的新数据集来评估 EAC-CET 的实施。采用这些数据，我们提出了 EAC 关税政策的五种模式：(i) 国家层面偏离共同关税制度的使用增加使 EAC-CET 越来越不“普遍”；(ii) 肯尼亚、坦桑尼亚和乌干达主要使用单边偏差来增加外部保护，而卢旺达主要降低关税；(iii) 肯尼亚、坦桑尼亚、乌干达对同一类别的产品提高关税，但针对不同的行业；㈣ 国家一级的单方面关税削减主要用于促进获得投入；(v) 企业层面的豁免数据表明，东非共同体的私营部门发展将受益于中间投入品的较低关税。我们的研究结果表明，EAC 有一个初步但明显的趋势，即从共同关税制度转向国家和更具保护主义的贸易政策。