TRADE & FINANCE
AFRICA’S
ROLE IN
REGENERATING
THE GLOBAL
ECONOMY
SINDISO NGWENYA
The Common Market for
Eastern and Southern
Africa – COMESA
46
Africa’s integration into the global
economy will be based on three pillars;
market integration, infrastructure
development and industrial
development.
The market integration pillar aims at
removing trade and investment barriers.
The infrastructure pillar will enable physical
connectivity in the region to reduce the
cost of doing business and facilitate
the movement of goods, people and
services. The industrial development pillar
will address the productive constraints
that inhibit inclusive and sustainable
transformation of the region; from low
productivity economies that rely on export
of unprocessed primary commodities with
either little or no value addition, to high
competitive economies that produce and
export value added products.
Aware of the need to implement
programmes under the three pillars,
regional economic communities (RECs)
are leading their respective member
States on this path that will lead full
integration into the global economy.
In the eastern and southern Africa
region, three RECs namely the Common
Market for Eastern and Southern Africa,
(COMESA) the East African Community
(EAC) and the Southern Africa
Development Community (SADC) have
come together to create single mar ket
for trade and investments. The COMESA-
EAC-SADC Tripartite Free Trade Area is
one of the building blocks of the African
Continental Free Trade Area which will
come into force in 2017.
The Tripartite FTA brings together 26
States with a combined population of
625 million people and a combined
gross domestic product of United
States Dollars 1.3 Trillion. It accounts
for almost half the membership of the
African Union and sixty two percent of
the continent’s gross domestic product.
The total landmass of the countries
that make up the tripartite region is 17.3
million square kilometers which is twice
the size of China. The above statistics
and comparisons make a compelling
case for the integration arrangement that
will change the political and economic
geography of the region.
This vision of creating a single market
will address the challenges that arise
from the fragmentation of countries