African Tripartite FTA in June

The launch of a 26-country African trade deal will now take place in June during the third Tripartite Summit between the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC), and Southern African Development Community (SADC), sources have confirmed.

This Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA), once enacted, would bring together these three regional economic communities, COMESA, SADC and the EAC, which are jointly hosting the June event. The dates of the meet were not yet confirmed at press time.

The countries covered under the TFTA would range from Egypt to South Africa, a group that has a combined population of 625 million people and an aggregate GDP of US$1 trillion. These figures represent half of the African Union’s membership and 58 percent of the continent’s economic activity, according to COMESA.

Negotiations to launch the TFTA began in 2011, when heads of state from the Tripartite countries adopted a declaration aimed at establishing an FTA that emphasised market integration, infrastructure, and industrial development as the three main pillars. The negotiating principles and related roadmap were also adopted during this summit.

More progress expected

Last month, Malawi hosted the 11th Tripartite Trade Negotiations Forum (TTNF), with discussions geared toward finalising work in various areas such as tariff offers, rules of origin (RoO) regimes, trade remedies, dispute settlement, and movement of business people.

Rules of origin

The COMESA-EAC-SADC troika faces significant challenges in harmonising differential RoO, which have so far impeded inter-regional trade and the creation of regional value chains. One of the key challenges involves finding an acceptable framework for RoO, as the EAC and COMESA regimes in this area are significantly different from the one used by SADC.

Work on rules of origin is likely to continue after the launch of the TFTA as part of the “post signature activities,” one trade observer said.

Discussions related to rules on specific products will be more “gradual,” although “it is not expected that such work will be completed prior to the launch.”

Industrial development

The Tripartite Technical Committee on Industrial Development (TTCID) has adopted draft modalities for cooperation and a draft programme of work on industrial development.

This committee will now develop the appropriate legal instrument for cooperation in industrial development, as outlined in the Programme of Work and Road Map.