The 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) trade bloc is committed to becoming a customs union within five years, officials said on Wednesday, according to the World Bank press review.
Top SADC officials meeting in Lesotho endorsed a program on the regions integration, which foresees a free trade union by 2008, a customs union by 2010, common market by 2015 and a single currency in the mould of the euro by 2018.
The officials are preparing for a heads of state and government summit in the mountainous kingdom Friday.
Western donors, on the sidelines of the meeting, said they were concerned with what they see as a slow pace towards integration and a lack of political commitment to SADC targets.
The European Union was concerned that some of SADCs members still belonged to the rival Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), slowing the momentum and raising questions of political commitment to SADCs agenda, one EU official said.
Another important aspect of regional integration is the free movement of people within SADC with the eye on promoting tourism and facilitating the crossing of spectators into South Africa during the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
A council of ministers meeting ahead of Fridays main summit thus urged SADC member states to consider in the meantime the relaxation of visa requirements among each other which would increase intra-SADC tourism and general trade growth, said Lesothos Finance Minister Timothy Thahane.
Discussions will also touch on subjects such as the AIDS pandemic ravaging the region and measures to stem the spread of avian influenza.
According to Tomaz Salomao, SADC executive secretary, “one of the main challenges for Southern Africa in economic development is to attract more foreign direct investment to the region”.
– Member countries should consider how to run properly the macroeconomic management, how to keep depression under control, and how to move towards the macroeconomic convergence, so that the region can become a full destination of foreign direct investment, said the executive secretary.
The African continent only takes in one to two percent of the total foreign direct investment in the world, said Salomao, adding:
– Worse than that, if you take out South Africa, Nigeria and Angola, you come to a conclusion that less than 0,5 percent of the foreign direct investment is coming to the continent, including SADC.
Thahane said another matter needing attention was Africas declining influence in world institutions. He said Africas voting share at world institutions, like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, had over years gone down, “with respect to various quota increases”.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
