By May 10 this year, Mugabe had travelled at least 140,000 km to 14 African, Asian and East European countries.
Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa:Burundi, Comoros, DRC, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Mugabe said the deal will create a borderless economy that will rank 13th in the world for gross domestic product.
These include the Sharm El Sheikh Declaration Launching the Comesa-EAC-Sadc Tripartite Free Trade Area; the Draft Post Signature Implementation Roadmap, the Indicative Schedule of Negotiations on Outstanding Issues in Phase I and Phase II negotiations, and the Programme of Work on Movement of Business Persons and the Industrial Development Pillar.
“You are the hope of the African people to materialise the Continental Free Trade Area which the African Heads of State have decided to finalize by 2017″, he told the delegates.
With all the hype surrounding this TFTA, you’d think it was the panacea to all of Africa’s economic and trade problems.
The existing zones are the East African Community, created in 2000; the Southern African Development Community, founded in 1980; and an overlapping Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa that also took shape in the 1980s.
The existence of bodies to promote regional integration do not actually change trade patterns, according to Quartz. Many Africans must endure Byzantine application processes before visiting other countries on their continent. Boosting trade has long been an ambition of the African Union (formerly the Organisation of African Unity), and BACKERS of the latest move are aware of scepticism surrounding its prospects.
The Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) spanning 26 countries is to be launched at a summit of heads of state and government on Wednesday in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh. And a handful of small nations effectively share South Africa’s rand, the most liquid and widely traded currency on the continent.
TRADE experts have cautioned that Zambia may not get meaningful benefits from a tripartite free trade agreement (TFTA) unless the country addresses challenges of over-dependence on raw material exports. “The agreement paves the way for a continental free trade area that will combine the three biggest regional communities”, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn told the summit.
But, Nigeria, the continent’s largest economy, is not in the new bloc. The deal, to be signed in Egypt.The trade zone will cover 26 countries and including more than 600 million people.
“ECOWAS has been preoccupied mostly with peacekeeping efforts and less with regional trade facilitation”, Juma said.
Source: http://rapidnewsnetwork.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment