THREE REGIONAL economic blocs have
made a giant step towards the long-conceived
goal of an African Economic Community,
approving the expeditious establishment of an
enlarged Free Trade Area (FTA) encompassing
26 Member States in three sub-regions.
Meeting at a Tripartite Summit on 22
October in Kampala, Uganda, leaders of
Member States of SADC, the Common Market
for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)
and the East African Community (EAC) agreed
on what many have described as an important
milestone towards continental integration as
envisaged by the African Union (AU).
According to the final communiqué, the
historic Tripartite Summit "agreed on a programme
of harmonization of trading arrangements amongst the three RECs
[Regional Economic Communities], free
movement of business persons, joint implementation
of inter-regional infrastructure
programmes as well as institutional arrangements
on the basis of which the three RECs
would foster cooperation."
The Summit resolved to immediately start
working towards merging the three trading
blocs into a single REC with the objective of
fast-tracking the attainment of the African
Economic Community. In that regard, the
Summit directed the Tripartite Task Force
composed of the Secretariats of the three
RECs to "develop a roadmap for the implementation
of this merger for consideration at
its next meeting."
Reaffirming southern
Africa’s commitment to the
tripartite cooperation process,
SADC Chairperson and South
African President, Kgalema
Motlanthe, said the region
"believes the time has come
for COMESA, EAC and
SADC to bring together our
respective regional integration
programmes in order to
further enlarge our markets,
unlock our productive potential,
increase the levels of
intra-Africa trade, and
enhance our developmental
prospects."
The creation of the grand
FTA will open borders to literally
half of the continent,
spanning the entire southern
and eastern regions of Africa,
from Cape to Cairo. It will be,
by any standard, a formidable
economic bloc with a combined
Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) of US$625 billion.
With a combined population
of 527 million, the grand
FTA places Member States in a
stronger position to respond
effectively to intensifying
global economic competition
and will make the economic
bloc more attractive to foreign
direct investment.
"The process we embark
upon today marks a historic
step towards fulfilling our
obligations under the AU and
the Abuja Treaty framework of
continental integration, which
recognises that RECs are the
building blocks for the African
Economic Community," said
Motlanthe, who addressed the
Summit in his capacity as
Chairperson of SADC.
The Summit was considered
historic given that
for the first time since
the birth of the AU,
three of the eight officially
recognised
key building blocks of the African Economic
Community have met on how
to integrate their separate programmes
into a coherent overall
programme within the
framework of the Abuja
Treaty, which establishes
the continental economic community.
On modalities, the
Tripartite Summit directed the
three RECs to undertake a
study incorporating, among
other issues, the development
of a roadmap within a period
of six months for the establishment
of the FTA, taking into
account the principle of variable
geometry; the legal and
institutional framework to
underpin the FTA; and measures
to facilitate the movement
of business persons
across the RECs.
The Summit further agreed
on a Tripartite Council of
Ministers to be convened
within 12 months to determine
the timeframe for the establishment
of the single FTA,
informed by the findings of
the study.
On multilateral issues, the
Tripartite Summit directed the
chairpersons of the Council of
Ministers of the three RECs to
"ensure that the Secretariats
participate, coordinate and
harmonize positions on
the Economic Partnership
Agreement (EPA) negotiations."
The same approach would
apply to other multilateral
negotiations including the
World Trade Organization’s
Doha Development Round
Negotiations.
In the area of infrastructure
development, the Summit
launched the Joint Competition
Authority (JCA) on Air
Transport Liberalization which
will "oversee the full
implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision on Air
Transport in the three RECs
commencing January 2009."
According to the communiqué,
the JCA comprises
seven members, two each
from EAC, COMESA and
SADC plus a chairperson on a
rotational basis.
The leaders directed the
three RECs to put in place,
within a period of one year,
joint programmes for the
implementation of:
- a single seamless upper airspace;
- an accelerated, seamless
inter-regional ICT Broadband
Infrastructure Network; and
- a harmonized policy and
regulatory framework that
will govern ICT and infrastructural
development in the
three RECs.
Within the same timeframe,
the RECs are expected to
"effectively coordinate and
harmonize" the Regional
Transport Master Plans and
the Regional Energy Priority
Investment Plans, as well as
the Energy Master Plans of the
three RECs.
The three secretariats were
directed to work out a joint
financing and implementation
mechanism for infrastructure
development, within
a year.
Regarding the legal
and institutional framework,
a Memorandum of Understanding
(MoU) will be drafted
for approval by the Council
of Ministers of each of the
three RECs, within a sixmonth
period. The MoU,
which will broadly cover
inter-regional cooperation and
integration, will define the
powers of each decision making
level.
The Summit agreed on a
Tripartite Summit of Heads
of State and Government which shall sit once every
two years.
The new dispensation in
regional integration will permanently
resolve the longstanding
overlapping membership
conundrum, which
had presented headaches as
the three RECs moved
towards deeper economic
integration.
Technically, a country cannot
belong to more than one
Customs Union. In a Customs
Union, members agree among
other issues, to charge a common
external tariff to third
countries.
Yet COMESA, EAC and
SADC have all attained FTA
status, and are at various
stages of establishing separate
Customs Unions.
The EAC is the most
advanced of the three RECs,
having already launched its
Customs Union while COMESA
plans to have its own by
December 2008.
SADC launched its FTA in
August 2008 and plans to create
a Customs Union by 2010.
If successfully implemented,
the Tripartite Summit decisions
will result in the three
RECs coalescing into a single
FTA with the ultimate objective
of establishing a single
Customs Union, a development
that would partially fulfil
the target of the treaty
establishing the African
Economic Community.
The treaty establishing
the African Economic Community,
popularly known as
the Abuja Treaty, was signed
in 1991 by leaders of the
Organisation of African Unity,
the precursor to the AU.
The treaty envisages a continental
economic zone by
2028, gradually built upon
merging of the many RECs
across the African continent.
