Business
Africa’s Tripartite FTA to be launched this December
The preparatory phase mainly covered the exchange of all relevant information including tariffs including applied national tariffs as well as trade data and measures. Phase one of negotiations covered core FTA issues of tariff liberalization, rules of origin, customs procedures and simplification of customs documentation, transit procedures among other issues. Facilitating movement of business persons within the region was negotiated in parallel with the first phase. The last stage of negotiations, which is phase two, deals with trade in services and trade related issues including intellectual property rights and trade development and competitiveness.
Negotiations under this phase are currently on-going and nearing completion in time for the historic launch of the Tripartite FTA.
Plans to establish Africa’s largest integrated market are being followed keenly by the AU and other regional economic communities on the continent that want to learn from this experience. Under the African Economic Community Treaty signed in 1991, Africa aims to establish a continent-wide FTA and the pending single market is regarded as one of the building blocks for the continental target.
Therefore, once operational, the Tripartite FTA will be used as a benchmark for deeper regional and continental integration in Africa. In fact, the AU Commission considers the tripartite arrangement as a “best practice” that other regional communities should emulate towards the realisation of Africa’s vision of an integrated, prosperous and united continent.
“The COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite arrangement represent best practice that the other RECs are encouraged to emulate in order to accelerate the harmonization of their programs and activities,” reads part of the latest report on the Status of Integration in Africa released by the AU Commission.
The benefits of the Tripartite FTA are many. For example, its establishment will resolve the longstanding overlapping membership conundrum, which has presented challenges for the 3 communities in their quest towards accelerating integration. Technically, a country cannot belong to more than one customs union, yet the three communities have either already established or are working towards creating their unions.
The ultimate launch of the enlarged FTA will result in the three sub-regions coalescing into a single FTA with the goal of establishing a single Customs Union in the near future. Thus, the tripartite agreement is not a new legal structure neither is it a new regional economic community. Rather it is an attempt to merge the different regional organisations into the African Economic Community.
The creation of an enlarged market would also promote the movement of goods and services across borders as well as allowing member countries to harmonize regional trade policies to promote equal competition. Removal of trade barriers such as huge export and import fees would enable countries to increase their earnings, penetrate new markets and contribute towards their national development.
