Free Trade Agreement ready 2014 - EAC boss

BY THE GUARDIAN REPORTER

18th November 2013.

Dr Richard Sezibera

Considerable progress has been made and negotiations have intensified to ensure that the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement (TFTA) is done come June 2014, EAC Secretary General has said.

Dr Richard Sezibera revealed this in Arusha when opening the 4th meeting of Friends of the Tripartite held at the EAC Headquarters.

The meeting was aimed at information exchange on progress made with regard to regional infrastructure development in the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite region.
The EAC boss and Chair of the Tripartite Task Force, said the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Summit of Heads of State and Government in June 2011, adopted a developmental integration approach for the Tripartite Free Trade Area built on three pillars namely: Market Integration, Industrial Development and Infrastructure Development.

“Considerable progress has been made and negotiations have intensified to ensure that we clinch the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement (TFTA) by June 2014,” he added.
COMESA Secretary General, Sindiso Ngwenya reiterated that the Tripartite Free Area and its different components should be seen as part of the African Union Commission’s aim to establish a Continental Free Trade Area.

“We endeavour to address issues pertaining to multiple membership and different trade regimes of economic blocs in the Continent and consequently establish a Continental Free Trade Area by 2017,” he noted.

In a bid to make the region more competitive by reducing high costs of transport, trade and energy, thereby creating higher levels of economic growth, employment creation and poverty reduction, the Friends of Tripartite meeting discussed various Tripartite Projects.

The Tripartite is an umbrella organization consisting of three of Africa’s Regional Economic Communities (REC’s), namely the East Africa Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The overarching objective of the Tripartite is to contribute to the broader objectives of the African Union (AU), namely accelerating economic integration of the continent and achieving sustainable economic development thereby alleviating poverty and improving quality of life for the people of the Eastern and Southern African Region.

As such, the Tripartite works towards improving coordination and harmonisation of various regional integration programmes of its member REC’s.

These regional integration programmes focus on expanding and integrating trade and include the establishment of Free Trade Areas (FTA’s), Custom Unions, Monetary Unions and Common Markets, as well as infrastructure development projects in transport, information and communications technology and energy.

With more than 527 million people and a Gross domestic product (GDP) of approximately USD 624 billion, the 26 member countries of the Tripartite make up a 57 percent of the population of the African Union (AU) and just over 58 percent in terms of contribution to the GDP. This makes the Tripartite vital to the envisaged single market and continental integration of the African Economic Community (AEC). 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN