The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) marks the 24th anniversary since its transformation from the Preferential Trade Area for Eastern and Southern Africa (PTA).

A high-level COMESA delegation led by Secretary General Ms. Chileshe Kapwepwe will mark the anniversary in Egypt while attending the Africa 2018 Forum organized by the COMESA Regional Investment Agency (RIA) in partnership with the government of Egypt.

The two-day event, kicked off on Saturday and brings together more than 3,000 delegates including heads of State to advance intra Africa investments.

The COMESA delegation is using the Africa 2018 Forum in Sharm el Sheikh and the forthcoming Intra -Africa Trade Fair in Cairo, 11 – 17 December 2018 to showcase its contribution to economic growth and development of its Member States while directly engaging with stakeholders in side meetings and expos.

Among the notable developments of COMESA in the last 24 years is the expansion of the regional economic bloc from 19 to 21 Member States following the admission of Tunisia and Somalia in July 2018. The bloc is now the largest in the continent with a combined gross domestic product of $769 billion and a population of 560 million people.

It is also the REC that integrates most of the countries of the Great Lakes region, covering Central, Eastern and Southern Africa, with significant need for enhanced cross-border economic activities.

On this anniversary, Secretary General cites the digitization of trade facilitation instruments as the high priority with technical work on launching a digital Certificate of Origin and a Regional Trade Portal now completed.

“We estimate that digitization of our trade facilitation instruments will create new trade worth $12.3 billion annually,” she said. “This will facilitate trade, connectivity, reduce our transaction time and costs, and certainly increase efficiency in our various interventions.”

Research indicates that once the digital free trade area is fully implemented by all Member States, the region could annually gain US$ 17.5 billion in intra-COMESA exports.

Among notable achievements that COMESA is celebrating at 24 years is the resolution of 98% of all reported non-tariff barriers (NTBs) that inhibited regional trade. These relate to liberalization of import licensing, removal of foreign exchange restrictions, taxes on foreign exchange, import and export quotas, road blocks, easing of Customs formalities, extending times border posts are open, creation of One-Stop-Border-Posts.

Source: KBC

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