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All set for Tripartite Free Trade Area

Saturday May 16 2015

Africa’s biggest trading blocs are next month set to sanction the creation of a grand free trade area while still seeking consensus on tariff liberation and rules of origin of manufactured products.

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) has been negotiating for agreeable tariff offers and the criteria for determining the national sources of products with its counterparts—Southern African Development Community (Sadc) and the East African Community (EAC).

But the indecisiveness of some member states and trading blocs to table their own tariff proposals has delayed the launch of the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA).
The negotiations for the single market were launched in Johannesburg in 2011.

READ: Tripartite FTA talks put back, Pretoria gets cold feet

“These issues will be renegotiated after the approval of the draft agreement establishing the Tripartite Free Trade Area among the Comesa, Sadc and EAC trading blocs,” Mark Ogot, a senior assistant director in charge of economic affairs at Kenya’s Ministry of East African Affairs, Commerce and Tourism told The EastAfrican, noting that only 40 per cent of the issues to do with rules of origin have been completed.

“They have agreed on the way forward although there is still some work to be done. Rules of origin and tariff offers are the outstanding issues.”

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According to draft documents, the tripartite member states are expected to simplify and harmonise their trade and Customs documentation and procedures for trade in goods among themselves.

The member states are not supposed to impose quantitative restrictions on imports or exports in trade with each other while goods originating in any of the tripartite member states shall be eligible for preferential treatment.

Negotiations are in two phases: The first phase, which is split into two periods, was to take 36 months from June 2011 till June 2014.

Negotiations in most of the areas are virtually complete. The areas include dispute resolution, Customs procedures and simplification of Customs documentation, transit procedures, non-tariff barriers, trade remedies, technical barriers to trade and sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures.

According to the agreement, the member states are also expected to conclude phase two of the negotiations within two years upon entry into force of the pact.

These include negotiations on a protocol on trade in services and protocols in trade related matters including competition policy, cross border investments, trade and development and intellectual property rights.

The Tripartite Sectorial Committee of Ministers is set to meet by the end of May in Dar es Salaam to approve the draft document and outline the roadmap for the implementation of the Tripartite Free Trade Area.

The committee agreed that the Tripartite Summit of Heads of State and Government to be held in Egypt on June 10 would launch the Tripartite Free Trade Area.

The grand FTA encompasses 26 countries from Comesa, SADC and EAC with a combined population of nearly 625 million people and a total GDP of about $1.2 trillion.

The region makes up half of African Union membership and over 58 per cent in terms of contribution to GDP and 57 per cent of the total population.

The establishment of a Tripartite Free Trade Area will bolster intra-regional trade by creating a wider market, increase investment flows, enhance competitiveness and develop cross-regional infrastructure.

It will be the largest economic bloc on the continent and the launching pad for the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area in 2017.

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