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Signing of EA Common Market the highlight of 10 years of integration
Presidents Kibaki, Kagame, Museveni and Nkurunziza attend the first East African Investment Conference in Kigali. The signing of the East African Community Common Market in November was probably the biggest event in the history of the regional bloc. FILE
Posted Sunday, January 3 2010 at 12:09
Mr Mwapachu said the community had made rapid strides towards integration, surprising even the world’s biggest regional bloc — the European Union. The EU took more than 40 years to get where “we are in just 10 years”.
The presidents also laid the foundation stone for the EAC headquarters building in Arusha.
In Africa, only the EAC is close to achieving a Monetary Union, while achieving a Political Federation in 2015 will put East Africa ahead of the EU.
The region lost 20 years of progress as the original three countries went their separate ways in air transport, harbours, railways, lakes, posts and telecommunications, among other defunct regional institutions.
Of the original shared bodies, only three survived the 1977 break up — the East African Development Bank, the Inter University Council of East Africa and the Lake Victoria Basin Commission.
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