East African Community (EAC) Secretary General (SG) Ambassador Liberat Mfumukeko is spearheading a campaign to see 26 African countries sign the Free Trade Area Agreement.
At the meeting of the Tripartite EAC-COMESA-SADC that sat in Kampala recently, the republic of South Africa (RSA) signed the Free Trade Area agreement followed by Republic of Madagascar.
The Tripartite is led by Amb. Libérat Mfumukeko (EAC) and is one of the kind in Africa gathering 26 countries with a population of 650 million people and a GDP of over $1.5 trillion.
“Twenty (20) countries have already signed a Free Trade Area agreement and soon all of them will have signed it. This will provide the largest free trade market in Africa, and is a milestone towards the Continental Free Trade Area targeted by the African Union by 2063.” Mfumukeko told TrumpetNews.
Background
The Heads of State and Government of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) met on 10 June, 2015 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt at the Third Tripartite Summit to officially launch the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA).
The Tripartite Summit had given Member States 12 months from the launch of the TFTA to conclude outstanding negotiations issues on rules of origin, trade remedies and tariff offers.
However, due to a number of challenges faced in the process, the deadline of June 2016 was not met, and the commencement of Phase II negotiations – covering trade in services and other trade related matters – has been delayed pending the conclusion of negotiations on Phase I issues.
Twenty four Member States have signed the Declaration; only Libya and Eritrea have yet to sign.
The TFTA Agreement has been signed by 20 of the 26 member countries, namely Angola, Burundi, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya, State of Libya, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The Republic of South Africa and the Republic of Madagascar signed the TFTA Agreement on 7 July and 13 July 2017, respectively.
