Presidents of the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) will gather in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, at the weekend for a two-day summit expected to give the go-ahead for a free trade area.
South African news reports quoted Prega Ramsamy, the group’s acting executive secretary, as saying that the free trade area would be the “linchpin of regional cooperation”. He said the SADC trade protocol would be launched on 1 September. The 10 SADC nations which had already ratified it are Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. He said they would phase out tariff barriers for regional trade over the next eight years.
“When we compete regionally, we will improve standards, market access and quality and this enables us to compete on the world market,” Ramsamy was quoted as saying. Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Seychelles were still to sign the protocol, while Zambia had signed, but was yet to ratify it.
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