TRADE-AFRICA: Customs Union to Be Launched at COMESA Summit

HARARE, Oct 17 , 2008 (IPS) - Following the signing of a power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe on September 15, the country seems to be growing in confidence. Harare has announced that it will now host the 13th Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) summit in the resort town of Victoria Falls.

This will be a second chance for some of the rich pickings that come with hosting an event of such a magnitude. The summit was initially set to take place in May this year but was cancelled at the last minute after state-sponsored violence engulfed the country following President Robert Mugabe's loss to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in a first-round presidential election in March.

The violence also forced Tsvangirai to pull out of the second round presidential vote after about 200 of his supporters were killed and close to 25,000 were displaced in the run-up to the June 27 election. Mugabe went on to win the run-off poll uncontested and immediately swore himself in as president, a move which was heavily criticised by many world leaders.

In postponing the summit at the peak of political violence in May, COMESA had said it was doing so to give Zimbabwe time to conclude its electoral processes.

The ministry of industry and international trade’s permanent secretary, Christian Katsande, has since told IPS that Zimbabwe will be hosting the 13th COMESA summit of heads of state and government from November 25 to December 8 in Victoria Falls.

The summit will be held under the theme, ‘‘Consolidating Regional Economic Integration through Value Addition, Trade and Food Security’’. It will coincide with the launch of the COMESA customs union on December 8.

‘‘The launch of the customs union will be a key milestone in the development of the COMESA region and will give greater impetus to enhancing intra-regional trade,’’ argues Katsande. The summit will also deal with various other activities, such as administrative and budgetary affairs, the seating of the COMESA inter-governmental committee, the hosting of the COMESA business forum, meeting of the council of ministers, a COMESA golf tournament, the foreign affairs ministers’ meeting and the first ladies’ roundtable.

More than 1,500 delegates from 19 COMESA member states and associate regional and multilateral organisations, such as the Southern African Development Community, African Union, World Bank, European Union, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Commonwealth and the United Nations are expected to attend.

Zimbabwe has been suffering an eight year-old economic recession which saw its tourism arrivals drastically going down. The country will hope to use the opportunity to host the summit to showcase what it has to offer in terms of tourism and market itself as a 2010 World Cup destination.

The launch of the COMESA customs union on December 8 will see member states that join the union adopting an agreed common external tariff (CET) to be charged to third parties. The agreed CET rates are zero percent on capital goods, zero percent on raw materials, 10 percent on intermediate goods and 25 percent on finished goods.

The customs union is being launched to further deepen regional integration, in line with the COMESA regional integration programme and article 45 of the COMESA treaty that requires the establishment of a customs union.

A regional trade policy is being developed. This will address issues of policy space, sensitive products, customs management code, free circulation of goods, elimination of rules of origin, export processing zones (EPZs), trade remedies, competition policy, sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) measures and technical standards programmes.

The policy will also determine revenue sharing amongst the union’s members.

COMESA is made up of 19 member states. It has a population of more than 395 million people and a gross domestic product (GDP) of 215 billion dollars. It started as a preferential trade area (PTA) in 1981.

The regional integration programme for COMESA member states achieved a free trade area (FTA) in October 2000 and aims to achieve the customs union by December 2008, a monetary union by 2015 and a COMESA community by 2025.

The FTA has 13 member states. Trade within the FTA is on a duty and quota free basis. But the main challenge in the FTA is the resurgence and proliferation of non-tariff barriers which is hampering trade amongst member states.

Among some of COMESA's milestone achievements since the launch of the FTA are the increase of intra-COMESA trade which has gone up from 734 million dollars in 1985 to 7,6 billion in 2006. (END)

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