Regional bodies meet to discuss pan-regional Free Trade Area

The president recently returned from the India, Brazil, South Africa (IBSA) Summit in New Delhi, India at which significant talks were held regarding the current state of the world economy.

Feeding off those discussions, President Motlanthe then jetted off to Uganda for a tripartite meeting which included three regional economic organisations.

"The president is meeting to discuss the declared intention of the Southern African Development Community [SADC] to establish a customs union by 2010.

"[Also], the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa [COMESA], as well as the East African Community [EAC] has declared their intention to establish customs unions," said foreign affairs director general (DG) Ayanda Ntsaluba, on Wednesday, 22 October.

The meeting in Kampala is reflecting on the possibility of establishing a pan-regional FTA, and for South Africa, the opening up of markets in the SADC alone would introduce over 200 million people to the market.

There would be 26 members states aligned to the FTA, said the DG, adding that their combined gross domestic product (GDP) would amount to about $650 billion.

"The general sense in Kampala is that there needs to be some detailed work done to look at all the elements that will help shape the FTA.

"For countries in the SADC region, it is consistent with what the African Union [AU] has advocated with regard to how we should move toward substantive regional integration.

"We have always argued that we need to establish strong regional economic communities [RECs], and secondly you must encourage those RECs to interact among themselves as in intermediate step to the creation of an African common market," highlighted the DG.

The RECs are considered building blocks to the African Economic Community (AEC) recognised by the African Union Constitutive Act and the Abuja Treaty.

The RECs are key to implementing regional integration programmes in trade and economic development including the establishment of the FTA and a common customs union.

The 26 countries to possibly be included in the TFA make up half of the region in terms of membership and just over 58% in terms of contribution to GDP, as well as 57% of the total population of the AU.

From Uganda, President Motlanthe is expected to proceed to Benin where he will attend the Extraordinary Summit of the African Peer Review Forum (APRF) in Cotonou.

Article published courtesy of BuaNews