Africa's Main Trading Bloc Opens Summit On Customs Union

Djibouti, November 16, 2006 –   Leaders from Africa's main trading bloc have opened a summit to mull ways of forming a unified customs system for its 21-member states.

Six presidents and a prime minister, attending the 11th summit of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), will explore possibilities of putting in place the commons unions for their markets by 2008, an AFP correspondent said Wednesday.

But analysts say the ambition is strained by regional tensions and internal conflicts that threaten economic integration of Africa's largest commercial union.

Key among the flash points is the volatile situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is still awaiting the outcome of its first democratic elections in more than four decades and the increasingly fragile Somalia whose internal conflict threatens regional war.

The Somali crisis, which has festered for nearly 16 years, is also expected to top the agenda as well as the border row between arch-foes Ethiopia and Eritrea, both of whom are accused of meddling in Somali affairs.

The bloc is also to thrash out legislations needed to establish the common market among countries, home to 400 million people representing half the continent's population, with a total gross domestic product of 170 billion dollars (132 billion euros).

Present at the opening were presidents Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi, Sudan's Omar el-Beshir, Rwanda's Paul Kagame, Zimbambwe's Robert Mugabe, Djibouti's Ismail Omar Guelleh, Eritrea's Issaias Afeworki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

When it was founded in 1993 as an off-shoot of the Preferential Trade Area for Eastern and Southern Africa (PTA), COMESA foresaw a free-trade zone encompassing all its members by 2000 and for it to evolve into a customs union by 2004.

However, at the moment, only 11 COMESA members participate in the free trade zone. At a June meeting in Kigali, the remaining 10 countries outside the zone were urged to join as soon as possible.

The bloc was founded to integrate member economies through strong trade and investment links.

Source: Dominican Today

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