Six East African countries gathered in Zanzibar on Monday to sort out ways as how to improve the quality of their export-orientated products.

The two-day workshop drew participants from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Ethiopia and Eritrea that all took part in the sixth World Trade Organization ministerial conference held last December in Hong Kong.

The East African countries need to resort to up-to-date technologies to render the quality of their products acceptable to the world markets, said Amina Salim Ali, Zanzibar minister of state in the chief minister's office, while opening the workshop.

The Zanzibar government official said that not only new technologies but also new trade media are needed to facilitate East African countries to enter international markets with their products, according to reports reaching here.

Amina said that local manufacturers lacked technical know-how's and hence failed to attain aspired growth rate in their fight against poverty.

She appealed to the workshop participants to strive to benefit from the multilateral trading system that might turn out to be a solution the East African countries are looking for.

Source: Xinhua