12 Jun.
Summit of Comesa, EAC and Sadc.
SA will host the second summit of the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (Comesa), East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) on Sunday.
The tripartite framework has its basis in the Lagos Plan of Action and the Abuja Treaty establishing the African Economic Community. This has a view to rationalising and consolidating regional economic communities to achieve a common market for the continent, enhancing intraregional trade, attracting investment, and accelerating growth and development.
Which is all very well, except the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) is absent from this vision, for reasons not properly explained. As is usual with such initiatives, there are words aplenty but little in the way of substance. The first Tripartite Summit of Heads of State and Government was held in October 2008 in Uganda. It deliberated on strategies to deepen regional integration in eastern and southern Africa in pursuit of the African Union’s objective of accelerating the economic integration of the continent.
Nearly three years have elapsed and all there is to show for it is another summit. As one trade expert said: “The real bedevilment is, as always, in the detail and it remains to be seen whether we have the political stomach for deeper integration, when we have been unable to integrate properly with these trading blocs individually to date.”
That says something about the absence of Ecowas, despite the geographical roots of the Lagos Plan of Action and the Abuja Treaty. The Ugandan tripartite summit approved the establishment of a “grand” free trade area encompassing the member/partner states of Comesa, EAC and Sadc, and spanning the continent. This encompasses 26 countries with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of about $860bn and a combined population of about 590-million.
With the renewed surge of the commodities cycle, the plan is now even more apposite. The first summit was held just as global markets crashed to lows not seen since 1929. But as Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said in announcing the latest summit: “Since the African continent is now being looked on as a source of opportunity and as one of the growth areas of the global economy”, it is time to spur free trade. He said six out of 10 of the world’s fastest-growing economies are in Africa, and combined African GDP growth is heading towards 6% on the back of Asian industrial development, and the need for oil and minerals.
But it seems that while there are “grand” plans for transport and telecoms links from north to south and work has begun on harmonising policies, standards and procedures — including nontariff barriers to trade, infrastructure development and trade facilitation through the establishment of one-stop border posts — so far the only notable example of progress cited is the Chirundu one-stop border post between Zambia and Zimbabwe.
It can only be suspected that vested interests and policy differences get in the way of espoused African solidarity, and political realities retard practical action to spur development and growth. SA and the continent’s politico-economic blocs are instrumental in playing this game.
Davies also points to domestic industry in SA not investing in the country, despite the government offering support for investments through bodies such as the Industrial Development Corporation.
Many may believe the state is putting the cart before the horse, and that “grand” and continent-wide trade and industrial plans supersede the need to first get SA working. But it seems that if the government is not directing outcomes such as the creation of 5- million jobs by 2020, then no one can do so. Apart from the successes of SA’s automotive industry, the level of co- operation and policy-formation buy-in between the state and industry remains clouded and amorphous.
And because the government has yet to formulate any overarching policy for the multiple export-oriented industrial development zones that exist, and special economic zones that have been mooted to complement them, SA remains mired in the notion that only the government will create the platform necessary for jobs, and business must do what it is told. This despite the state acknowledging there is much to sort out at the provincial and municipal levels, and their role in economic and social development.
The heads of state and government should mull such issues on Sunday, and ask whether SA is in a position to lead.
Source: Business Day
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