|
COMESA Summit In Cairo Resumes On Final Day
CAIRO, May 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The sixth summit of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) resumed in Cairo Wednesday on its second and final day to discuss activating and enlarging a newly created free trade zone.
African heads of state and other representatives of the group's 21 member states met at a conference center here in northern Cairo.
In his opening address Tuesday, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak warned of the dangers of Africa becoming economically marginalized because of the opening up of world markets, as he urged more member countries to join the free trade area, the BBC said.
Mubarak stated that he hoped there would be joint efforts to realize peace and stability in the COMESA region, and referred to the peace agreement signed between Ethiopia and Eritrea last December, as well as recent steps taken to put into effect the Lusaka agreement on settling conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other successive positive developments, as examples of the types of efforts needed, news agencies said.
Founded in 1994, COMESA now contains member states representing a population of 350 million people, with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of some $153 billion.
It groups Angola, Burundi, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, the Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The grouping's free trade area was launched last October in Lusaka with nine countries signing up, aimed at forming a customs union by 2004 as well as a single currency and a common central bank by 2025.
African leaders speaking at the summit's opening called for an end to the numerous conflicts in the war-ravaged continent to give prosperity a chance.
COMESA authority Chairman, and Mauritian Prime Minister, Anerood Jugnauth urged all member states to join the grouping's ambitious six-month-old free trade area (FTA) to avoid delaying integration, AFP said.
"Six months after the launching of the FTA, trade flows are increasing and new trade patterns emerging," said Jugnauth at the opening of a summit in Cairo, news agencies said.
"Now that the FTA is operational, we need to move to the next step in our regional integration process through the establishment of the customs union by 2004," Jugnauth said.
Jugnauth also warned that HIV/AIDS posed a growing threat to African economic development in terms of lost productivity and a reduced labor force.
"There should be closer collaboration between African governments, NGOs [non-governmental organizations], the private sector and other stakeholders in the fight against the disease," he said.
According to United Nations figures quoted by Jugnauth, around four million people became infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa last year alone.
Out of 36 million people living with AIDS around the world, 26 million of them live in Africa, he added.
On Tuesday, Jugnauth passed the rotating COMESA presidency to Egypt, the latest country to join the grouping in February 1999.
In addition, the African organization inaugurated a special trade court earlier this year to arbitrate differences over implementing the trade area agreements.
Some complaints have already emerged, including protests by Zambian farmers last December that Zimbabwe is maintaining trade barriers that were supposed to fall under the trade zone, news agencies said.
COMESA is distinct from COMESSA, or the Community of Sahel-Saharan States, a grouping of 16 African countries founded in 1998 by Libyan leader Moamer Ghaddafi.
|
