COMESA Launches Free Trade Area
2 hours 32 minutes ago
Sandton, June 12, 2011-The Tripartite alliance comprising of Southern Africa
Development Community (SADC), East African Community (EAC) and Common Market
of East and Southern Africa (COMESA) launched negotiations for a Free Trade
Area (FTA) between these two regions meant to bolster intra-regional trade,
a communiqué released after the COMESA summit noted, Sunday.
The negotiation launched is meant to “increase a wider market, increase
investment flows, enhance competitiveness and develop cross-regional
infrastructure”, read part of the communiqué issued at the end of the
meeting.
The FTA negotiations are in line with achieving Africa’s vision of
establishing the African Economic Community that seeks to harmonise and
coordinate policies and programmes of Regional Economic Communities (REC).
The summit adopted a developmental approach that will see these regions
being anchored on market integration, infrastructure development and
industrial development meant to boost production capacity of the Tripartite.
The COMESA summit commenced Saturday and spilled on to Sunday afternoon with
the Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe being reported to have been absent most
part of the day due to alleged health problems.
The SADC special summit on Zimbabwe meant to deliberate on the roadmap to
elections and full implementation of the Global Political Agreement started
after the COMESA meeting late Sunday afternoon and a communiqué was expected
to be issued at the end of the deliberations later in the evening.