New economic bloc on cards

Oliver Kazunga Senior Business Reporter—
A NEW economic bloc that seeks to further promote regional integration in Africa will be launched before the end of the year. The tripartite trading bloc to be named Grand Free Trade Area will comprise countries in Sadc, Common Market for Eastern (Comesa) and Southern Africa and East African Countries (EAC).Comesa secretary-general Sindiso Ngwenya said the tripartite sectoral committee of Comesa-EAC-Sadc ministers resolved at its recent meeting in Burundi that the forthcoming bloc would be launched at the Tripartite Summit of Heads of State and Government set for Egypt in December.

“The Tripartite Sectoral Committee of Comesa-EAC- Sadc Ministers meeting in Bujumbura, Burundi from October 24 to 25, 2014 has agreed that the Tripartite Summit of Heads of State and Government to be held in Egypt in mid-December 2014 would launch the Tripartite Free Trade Area (FTA),” said Ngwenya in a statement.

He said the decision to launch the tripartite FTA took into account that the majority of the tripartite member states had made ambitious tariff offers and were agreed on rules of origin to be applied in the interim while further work continues on product specific rules of origin.

Ngwenya said the tripartite FTA encompassing 26 member states from Comesa, EAC and Sadc with a combined population of 625 million people and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $1.2 trillion would account for half of the membership of the African Union and 58 percent of the continent’s GDP.

“The tripartite FTA officially known as the Grand Free Trade Area will be the largest economic bloc on the continent and the launching pad for the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) in 2017.

“The tripartite FTA offers significant opportunities for business and investment within the Tripartite and will act as a magnet for attracting foreign direct investment into the tripartite region.

“The business community in particular will benefit from an improved and harmonised trade regime which reduces the cost of doing business as a result of elimination of overlapping trade regimes due to multiple memberships.”

He said the launching of the tripartite FTA was the first phase of implementing a developmental regional integration strategy that places high priority on infrastructure development, industrialisation and free movement of businesspersons.

“In order for the tripartite FTA to realise inclusive and equitable growth the meeting agreed on the need for expeditious formulation and implementation of a regional industrial programme.

Industry and Commerce Deputy Minister Chiratidzo Mabuwa hailed the agreement to launch the Grand FTA as a milestone in regional and continental integration.

“Africa has now joined the league of emerging economies and the Grand FTA will play a pivotal and catalytic role in the transformation of the continent.
“We’ve made significant progress in negotiations on trade in goods, and we now need to expedite negotiations on trade-related areas including trade in services, intellectual property and competition policy to ensure equity among all citizens of the wider region,” she was quoted as saying at the close of the Tripartite sectoral committee of Comesa-EAC-Sadc ministers meeting.