Kenya's COMESA sugar safeguard expires after 24 years as MPs press for new import protection

Kenya's safeguard capping duty-free sugar imports from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) expired on 30 November 2025 after almost 24 years in force. Ten months on, Nairobi is exploring alternative protective measures, The East African reported on 16 September 2026, in an account summarised by The Rio Times. No application has been lodged with COMESA and no new measure has been granted.

Pressure is also coming from parliament. Members of the National Assembly's Trade Committee have called for stronger safeguards to shield local millers from uncontrolled imports, and have raised concerns about cane poaching.

A 24-year exemption under Article 61

Article 61 of the COMESA Treaty allows a member state to restrict imports of a product for a defined period so that its domestic industry can restructure. Kenya obtained that permission for sugar in 2001 and retained it through repeated extensions for close to 24 years; accounts differ on the total, with both seven and eight extensions reported. The original cap allowed 200,000 tonnes of duty-free regional sugar a year.

The final extension was granted by the COMESA Council of Ministers on 23 November 2023 and ran from December 2023 to 30 November 2025. It was not renewed. COMESA is a free trade area of 21 member states stretching from Egypt to Eswatini, and it includes Malawi, Eswatini and Zambia — producers whose costs sit below Kenya's.

Output rose, but the deficit did not close

Nicholas Gumbo, chairman of the Kenya Sugar Board, said in January 2026 that a safeguard is only needed where domestic capacity is inadequate, and that Kenya did not need one. Output had indeed risen sharply, from 472,773 tonnes in 2022 to 815,454 tonnes in 2023, while cane acreage expanded from 242,508 hectares to 289,631 hectares over the same period.

Consumption, however, runs at roughly 1.13 million tonnes a year and is forecast to reach about 1.14 million tonnes. Even at the improved level, domestic production does not cover demand, and the balance is met by imports. Imports were projected to exceed 350,000 tonnes in 2025 — well above the 200,000-tonne duty-free ceiling that has now lapsed.

Three instruments, one expired

The COMESA cap was only one of three instruments governing sugar entering Kenya. Sugar originating outside COMESA and the East African Community faces a 100% tariff unless a waiver is granted. The US Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service reported in April 2026 that Kenya continues to regulate imports through licensing. A separate industrial waiver covering 208,600 tonnes at a 10% duty ran until 30 June 2026. With the safeguard gone, licensing and the waiver system are what remain.

What it means for mills and cane growers

Sugar supports several hundred thousand farming households in western Kenya, concentrated around Kisumu, Kakamega and Bungoma. Millers there buy cane at prices set with reference to the cost of imported sugar, so cheaper regional supply lowers the retail price and compresses the cane price at the same time. That trade-off between the shopper and the farmer has driven Kenyan sugar politics for two decades.

What to watch:

• Whether Kenya files a formal request with the COMESA Council of Ministers.
• Monthly retail sugar prices published by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.
• The fate of the industrial waiver, which expired at the end of June 2026.
• Closures among western Kenyan mills, which would sharpen the political case for protection.