China has threatened a ‘trade war’ against Kenya after President Uhuru Kenyatta banned fish imports from their country.
Funding for the next phase of the Standard Gauge Railway could be a failure after China threatened to impose trade sanctions on Kenya in retaliation at a ban on Chinese fish.
Acting ambassador Li Xuhang described the ban as a “trade war”, warning that his country could react in the same way it did to US President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Chinese goods.
Mr Li revealed that the embassy had a letter from the Fisheries Department cancelling all applications for imports of Chinese fish.
Imposition of the ban on Chinese fish follows President Kenyatta’s remarks recently when he publicly wondered why imported fish should be flooding the Kenyan market at the expense of local produce. He challenged officials to find ways to curb the influx.
At stake will be funding for the Naivasha-Kisumu phase of the SGR, which has already been delayed after China refused to sign an agreement during President Kenyatta’s visit to the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing last month.
The refusal to sign the deal was to express displeasure at what China views as an increasingly hostile operating environment, citing negative media reports and public bashing by politicians.
President Kenyatta is also expected to sign an agreement during a return visit to China early November, which would ease exportation of Kenyan food and agricultural products to the vast Chinese market.
Kenyans rejected the mass farmed Chinese tilapia, whose taste customers describe as “plastic” and lacking in the deep flavour of lake fish. The bones in the Chinese fish are small, which makes it difficult to eat. But Kenyan pockets gravitate towards the “plastic” fish: a kilo of Chinese fish goes for about Sh230. Prime Kenyan tilapia fillet sells for Sh700 and a kilo of whole fish is about Sh400.
On October 24, the acting director-general of the Kenya Fisheries Service Susan Imende wrote to fish importers: “This is to notify you that all fish import applications for Oreochromis niloticus Tilapia will not be approved in the country with effect from January 1, 2019.”
The grace period, she explained, would allow importers to clear existing orders.
Although the letter was not specific to Chinese fish, it is instructive that it covered only tilapia, a species only China exports to Kenya in appreciable quantities.
It is also notable that the letter came only 10 days after President Kenyatta spoke about Chinese fish imports.
The letter from Fisheries did not give any reasons, but it clearly annoyed the Chinese government.
Mr Li said yesterday that the main concern was not so much the volume of business to be affected, but the principle of free trade, the rule of law, adherence to bilateral trade agreements and WTO rules and due process.
Can kenya survive without Chinese loan or should we just take their “omena”??