The fifteenth Summit of the COMESA Authority of Heads of State and Government opened in Lilongwe, Malawi this morning Friday 14th October 2011 at the new State House. His Excellency Professor Bingu wa Mutharika welcomed His Majesty King Mswati III and other Heads of State to Malawi at the historic Summit.

Other Presidents who have jetted in for the Summit are Omar al Bashir of Sudan, Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda.

Vice Presidents and Prime Ministers from Zambia, Kenya, Union of Comoros, Rwanda, Djibouti and Seychelles have also arrived for the Summit. More Heads of State are expected to arrive this morning.

Malawi is widely regarded as the birth place of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) because it was in Lilongwe that the then PTA was transformed to COMESA in 1994. During that time, President Bingu wa Muthrika was the Secretary General of the Preferential Trade Area (PTA). The Malawian leader is credited for being the architect of the COMESA treaty and is also regarded as the brains behind regional integration in eastern and southern Africa.

At today’s Summit, His Majesty King Mswati III will be handing over power of Chairmanship of COMESA to President Mutharika. The King has been at the helm of COMESA for one year from August 2010.

Under his chairmanship, Swaziland steered COMESA to deeper regional integration levels. COMESA’s intra-trade levels increased by about US$5 billion from a low of US$12.7 billion to US$17.4 billion.

This quick recovery from the financial crisis has been attributed to various factors, including the macroeconomic stability of the COMESA region and the existence of the COMESA Free Trade Area, together with the support from key COMESA institutions such as the PTA Bank and the African Trade Insurance.

The EU and China have been the leading export markets for COMESA member States as a whole, with COMESA coming third ahead of the United States. However, COMESA continued to be a leading export market for some member states notably Burundi, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia. Under Swaziland’s leadership, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo have made strides to join the Free Trade Area.

COMESA region will now focus on the Customs Union whose transition period ends in June 2012. The COMESA Customs Union was launched in 2009 but a transition period was immediately put in place to allow member states to align their policies to allow for the full implementation of the Customs Union.

The Summit in Malawi is expected to review progress that has been made by the nineteen member states in this regard.

The issue of the tripartite grand Free Trade Area by COMESA, the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community is expected to be high on the COMESA agenda. Deserving journalists from the COMESA region will also be awarded during the Summit. These are journalists who submitted entries to the annual COMESA media award competition. The award recognizes excellence in economic reporting in the region.

The Summit will also discuss issues of democracy, human rights, peace and security, investment and sustainable development in the region.

Lilongwe, Malawi- The Federation of National Associations of Women in Business in Eastern and Southern Africa (FEMCOM) in collaboration with the Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA) held a consultative forum on food secutity and women in business March 28-30, 2011.

Participating countries included; Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe and the host Malawi.

FEMCOM is one of the umbrella associations involved in the implementation of the European Union supported COMESA Regional Agro Inputs Programme (COMRAP). The Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA) has the mandate to coordinate COMRAP implementation and is working closely with FEMCOM in this regard to ensure appropriate gender mainstreaming in the COMRAP and other ACTESA led initiatives.

COMRAP has the overall objective of contributing to improving rural food security and livelihoods in the COMESA region through training and capacity building of national and regional input providers and harmonization of related regional legal frameworks.

The consultative forum should provide a conducive environment for COMESA member States to deliberate on appropriate programmes that will integrate women into trade and development through COMRAP activities within the region. But above all, this activity is a step towards contributing to the overall objective of ACTESA and COMESA in the agriculture sector which is to improve agriculture production and enhance food security within the region.

FEMCOM is a COMESA institution, established in July 1993 under Article 155 of the COMESA Treaty and the Secretariat is hosted in Malawi

The main objective of FEMCOM is to promote programmes that integrate women into trade and development activities in the region, in particular, in the fields of agriculture, industry, trade, services, fishing, mining, energy, transport, communications and natural resources. FEMCOM was founded on the idea that regional economic integration cannot be seen to have succeeded if it did not involve the full and equal participation of women in business.

FEMCOM is re-positioning itself to become a key player in regional trade activities at different levels especially in the agriculture sector is dominated by women

The consultative forum was expected to have attracted 60 participants from COMESA member States including representatives of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), Regional Food Security and Risk Management Programme (REFORM), Women in Agri-business in Sub Saharan Africa Alliance (WASAA), USAID, Market Linkages Initiative (a USAID funded project) and Agricultural Commodity Exchange for Africa (ACE).

Malawi has been chosen as a venue for the consultative forum based on its strong performance in boosting security through the wise leadership of President, Prof. Bingu Wa Mutharika of transforming the country from a food importing to a food exporting nation.

The major expected outcome of undertaking this consultative forum was to concretize strategies for enhancing partnerships, defining areas of collaboration and harmonizing programs for strengthening women networks among farmers, agro-dealers, agents and producers at regional and national levels.

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, (COMESA) has procured equipment to be used in three regional laboratories meant to enhance Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) requirements. This is part of efforts by the regional bloc to establish SPS regional reference laboratories. The three laboratories are the Central Veterinary Research Institute for Animal Health in Zambia, the Food Technology laboratory for food safety of Mauritius and the Plant Inspectorate Service for Plant Health of Kenya.

This has been revealed by Dr Chungu Mwila, Director of Investment Promotion and Private Sector Development (IPPSD) at the COMESA Secretariat. Dr Mwila was speaking at the opening of the national training workshop for Zambia on SPS held in Lusaka from 12th to 14th January 2011. The training was co-organised by COMESA, the Zambian Government and the African Nations in Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standard Setting Organisations Project (PAN-SPSO).

Dr Mwila pointed out that COMESA countries need to comply with SPS requirements in order for them to fully participate in the multilateral trading arena and also protect the lives and health of humans, animals and plants in the region.

“It is important to note that most African national fail to access international markets for their agricultural and food products mainly because of non compliance with SPS requirements.

SPS standards are a major part of the international trading regime and we need to conform to these rules if we are to occupy our rightful position in the international trading area,” Dr Mwila pointed out. He added that the harmonization of SPS measures in the COMESA region is hampered by several factors which include insufficient human resources capacities, insufficient institutional capacities, incompatible legislation, regulatory, inspection and certification systems. Other factors are insufficient dialogue among the relevant SPS authorities in the various Member States and inadequate participation of Member States in international fora that deal with SPS matters, particularly the standard setting processes.

It is for this reason that COMESA is working to assist Member States ensure that the SPS measures they implement conform to agreed regional and international standards set by the World Organisation for Animal Health, International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) and Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC).

COMESA and PAN-SPSO have teamed up and help Member States develop their capacities in SPS. After the training, it is expected that African countries will be strengthened to empower national SPS offices for effective participation in SPS standard setting activities, strengthening of a common position in SPS by African nations and at the level of Regional Economic Groupings (RECs). The technical capacity of African countries to draft standards and develop science-based arguments will have been strengthened.

So far, COMESA has trained close to 150 SPS experts in Member States at different levels in order to form a nucleus of SPS experts in the region, helping to establish the three regional labs, sensitising stakeholders at national level and adopting SPS regulations which were done in December 2009 by the COMESA Council of Ministers.

International Standards for SPS Measures are the standards, guidelines and recommendations recognized as the basis for application of SPS measures by members of the World Trade Organisation.

COMESA and PAN-SPSO are conducting the training in eight COMESA Member States namely: Democratic Republic of Congo, Comoros, Eritrea, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Seychelles and Zambia.

COMESA

The Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) announced that Ambassador of Eritrea to the Republic of Kenya, Salih Omar Abdu, presented credentials as his country’s Permanent Representative to COMESA Secretary General Sindiso Ngwenya on Wednesday, 20th October 2010. This is the first time that the Republic of Eritrea, has appointed a Permanent Representative to COMESA.

Mr. Ngwenya warmly welcomed Ambassador Salih Omar Abdu to COMESA Secretariat, which he said was a home to all and to the entire COMESA region and its people and Governments.

He reiterated the role of COMESA Secretariat in serving member States “at COMESA Secretariat, we pride ourselves in being, hospitable, kind and helpful, energetic and fast, and in providing an excellent service to all stakeholders. We put exceptional priority to assisting the people of the region, particularly the ordinary people, to improve their living standards through better employment opportunities and incomes”, said Mr. Ngwenya.

Secretary General Ngwenya congratulated His Excellency and the Eritrean government for his appointment as a Permanent Representative to COMESA and to which he acknowledged Eritrea as an active Member State of COMESA.

Secretary General Ngwenya indicated some milestones achieved by Eritrea within the frame work of COMESA integration agenda. Some of those identified include: Eritrea’s export to COMESA region in 2008 amounted to $4,294,499 and Eritrea’s import from COMESA region was $ 4,521,232. Adding that the trade would be even much more if there was appropriate connectivity and therefore the reason why COMESA was considering a shipping line.

Regarding the COMESA Programme on Trade facilitation, Mr Ngwenya pointed out that Eritrea has fully implemented the Yellow Card Scheme, adding that Eritrea realized a high performance of 75% in regards to the implementation of road transport facilitation programmes, and actively participates in the Food and Agricultural Marketing Information System (FAMIS) activities and has benefited from the training of data collection consultants and FAMIS administrators just to mention a few..

Mr Ngwenya further said that Eritrea fully recognizes the COMESA Laissez Passer and Agreement on Privileges thereby facilitating the implementation of COMESA Programmes and activities in the Eritrean territory and looked forward to working with the new Permanent representative in consolidating these achievements and assist Eritrea to fully benefit from COMESA programmes.

Presenting his credentials, Ambassador Salih Omar Abdu said that his appointment is a sign of Eritrea’s commitment to the implementation of the COMESA agenda, adding that although Eritrea was not yet a member of the COMESA Free Trade Area (FTA), she had reduced tariff on COMESA originating goods by 80 per cent, and that it was his hope that Eritrea will remove the remaining 20 per cent soon and work with other members of the FTA.

Mr Salih Omar Abdu further noted that COMESA as an institution has various co-operations with other organizations within the region and outside the region like JAPAN, EU, USA etc. which form an essential external environment for regional development and stability.

He retaliated the commitment of Eritrea as an active member of COMESA as evidenced by the COMESA Secretary General’s recent visit to Eritrea where he met President Isaias Afwerki , Government officials and various stakeholders.

Source: COMESA

Asmara, 3 September 2010 – (Shabait) – The Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Estifanos Habte, participated in the 14th COMESA Summit that was held in Lozitha city, Swaziland, from August 31 to September 1.

In the summit conducted under the theme: “Harnessing Science and Technology for Development,” the COMESA member states reached understanding on the need to reinforce efforts and allocate enough budget in research and communication technology, set up joint science and technology parks, as well as utilize biotechnology in the agriculture sector and nano technology in the health sector.

The summit also assessed the developments registered in the tripartite-free-trade among the COMESA, the South Africa Development Community and the East African Community, besides giving work directives as regards the finalization of the process.

Taking note of the significance of the prevalence of peace and security in the COMESA region towards attaining development and facilitating the economic integration process, the summit held extensive discussion and adopted resolutions and recommendations.

Also in a meeting held earlier beginning from August 18, the unilateral governmental committee, the Ministers and Foreign Ministers Council reviewed the tasks accomplished last year, in addition to submitting the proposal of the action plan for next year to the COMESA member states summit for approval.

COMESA is a regional organization comprising 19 countries from Eastern, Southern and Northern Africa.

PTA BANK

The Eastern and Southern Africa Development Bank (PTA Bank), a financial arm of COMESA, has continued making profits. The President of the Bank, Dr. Michael Gondwe revealed this at the 26th Annual Meeting of the PTA Bank held in Mahe, Seychelles, on July 23, 2010. The bank he noted, made a profit of over USD18 million in 2009 up from USD12.5 million in 2008.

While officially opening the meeting, His Excellency the President of the Republic of Seychelles, James Michel commended the Bank for its’ good performance despite the harsh operating conditions. The Head of State added that the Bank’s support for Seychelles, especially in the petroleum sector, was greatly appreciated by the country.

The President called on Member States to enhance support to the Bank to enable it continue being supportive of business growth. “It is important for us to enhance capacity of regional institutions such as the PTA Bank if they are to continue playing a catalytic growth in our economies,” said the Head of State.

During the meeting, the Vice President and Minister of Finance for the Republic of Seychelles, Hon. Danny Faure was elected the new chairman of the PTA Bank Board of Governors for the next financial year. Hon. Faure takes over the Chairmanship of the Bank’s topmost policy organ from Hon. Sufian Ahmed, the Minister of Finance of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.

Speaking at the occasion, the Hon. Faure called on his fellow Governors to continue contributing to the Bank’s programme “as we build a strong institution that will make a positive impact on our development agenda.”

Governors, comprised of shareholder representatives, deliberated on the business of the Bank. Top among them was adopting the Bank’s 2009 Annual Report. The Governors also adopted resolutions giving policy directions to the Board and management of the Bank. A new steering committee composed of Zambia, Sudan and the African Development Bank (ADB) was elected by the Governors.

The shareholders of the Bank are: The African Development Bank, Burundi, The People’s Republic of China, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

African Chinese Entrepreneurs

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) reports that it participated at the third Conference of African and Chinese Entrepreneurs in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt from 7th to 8th November 2009.

The organization was represented by Assistant Secretary General (Programmes), Mr. Stephen Karangizi, who pointed out that there is increasing evidence that Regional Economic Communities on the continent are working more closely together to realize the dream of Africa which is to integrate Africa.

A good example of this was the launch of the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite arrangement in October 2008, at which the 26 Heads of State of the three regional economic communities agreed to establish a Grand FTA stretching from Egypt and Libya to South Africa. In addition, the Heads of State also agreed on the eventual merger of the three institutions.

This augurs well for regional integration in Africa and for all potential investors as the removal of trade barriers of such a large region offers huge economies of scale. “We also believe that this new impetus opens the best way in which the building blocs recognized by the African Union, can rapidly contribute to the establishment of a larger African Economic Community”.

Mr. Karangizi added that through regional integration, Africa intends to create one large continental market of approximately one billion people that is competitive and offers all the productive and service sector economies of scale. Indeed the China example, which is the single largest integrated market in the world, offers the best lessons. The rapid growth of the economy of China over the past 20 years owes much to the large market of over 1.3 billion people.

In order to create a large continental market, the RECs have been concentrating on: removal of tariff barriers which has already been done by COMESA with the establishment of Free Trade Area stretching from Egypt and Libya in the north, to Swaziland and Mauritius in the south, reducing the range of non-tariff barriers, improving customs procedures and charges; and improving access to market information.

Mr. Karangizi said it is easier to invest in infrastructure projects on a regional basis in order to enhance intra-regional trade and address the uneven historical focus of having infrastructure designed to serve only the metropolis and export of raw materials.

However, RECs do recognize that there are several challenges to increase investment in infrastructure. One of the challenges is that most countries do not have the financial resources for investment in infrastructure projects, which require large capital outlays and are characterized by long gestation periods.

The traditional approach has been to obtain funding from multilateral development banks and development partners. This type of funding increases the debt stock and burden of countries. Hence, the need for public/private sector partnerships. It is gratifying to note that this is happening with respect to power and telecommunications projects.

Mr. Karangizi revealed that emphasis by Heads of State on regional integration is intentional so as to focus on five important factors, namely: Establishment of a large regional market to enhance competitiveness, Investment in infrastructure (energy, transport network, water and ICT), Investment in Productive and Services Sectors, Policy Harmonization and Regulation and Addressing Peace and Security Issues.

On expanding private/public partnerships, creative and innovative approaches are required for infrastructure financing such as the regional funds like the COMESA Infrastructure Fund, which has been established for pooling together resources to be leveraged for private sector investment in selected priority projects. In the near future, Member States of the Infrastructure Fund will be approaching selected private sector institutions that can participate in infrastructure investment in the region in partnership with the public sector.

African Farm

COMESA announced the creation of the Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA), which should help farmers to address their problems during rough times.

During the second congress of the East African Farmers’ Federation (EAFF) in Arusha, Tanzania the creation of  ACTESA was hailed as the most significant development in regional agriculture in 2009.

The EAFF highlights that farmers in the region have long required a focused initiative that would comprehensively address their market development needs.

“We need markets as producers but sometimes when our crops fail we need support – we see ACTESA as designed to meet these challenges.  We welcome ACTESA and we will work with it all the way,” the EAFF president stated.

The 2nd EAFF Congress was officially opened by Tanzanian Deputy Minister for East African Cooperation Honourable Mohamed Aboud, and the Congress brought together over 200 representatives of farmers’ organizations in the East African region to map strategies for the agricultural sector in East Africa over the next 2 years.

Newly appointed ACTESA Chief Executive Officer Cris Muyunda, during his address to the congress highlighted that ACTESA priorities over the next year included capacity building of farmer organizations, promoting of sustainable public – private partnerships in input supply and crop marketing and supporting modern instruments in structured agricultural trade. 

Other dignitaries at the Congress included ASARECA Executive Director Seyfu Ketema, and senior officials of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

In its resolutions, the congress urged COMESA, EAC and Member States to put in place a strong early warning mechanism for potential food shortfalls in the region, carefully examine the tax regime affecting agriculture in the region, fully consult farmers before concluding international trade agreements and deal with all security issues affecting farmers in the region, particularly those in the DRC.

COMESA REGION

Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe) – The organization for a common market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), has launched a single customs union yesterday during the 13th summit of the Head of States 2009.

Eritrea is a member of COMESA and is therefore taking part in the new customs union. The aim of the union is to facilitate trade between member states in a common market.

The COMESA customs union comes along with Eritrea’s recent announcement to introduce Free Trade Zones at the port of Massawa and Assab. As a result, the prospects for trade being stimulated in Eritrea look promising, because Eritrea has lowered trade fences for intra African as well as for overseas goods and products. 

The member countries have created one region in respect to their standardized customs system. For example, the abolishment of customs fees for certain goods traded between the member states themselves or the charging of the same rate of customs duty on goods imported from outside their territories.

The President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe, who took over the Chairmanship of COMESA for one year, called out to potential investors; ” We have a regional market for you, come to COMESA!”.

The outgoing Chairman and President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, encouraged the member states to stay committed to the regional organization, which has developed from a Preferential Trade Area (PTA) to the Free Trade Area (FTA) leading to the launch of the COMESA customs union.

Further, he announced that intra COMESA trade has reached the $15 billion mark in 2008, from $3.2 billion in 2001 when the COMESA FTA was introduced. Out of Eritrea’s total exports in 2007 approximately 8% were made to the COMESA region and 2% of imports came from the COMESA region (see table on the right).

13th COMESA Summit 2009

Lusaka (Zambia) – The organisation for a common market for Eastern and Southern Africa COMESA, is going to hold the 13th summit of the Head of States 2009 from the 7th to the 8th of June in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

COMESA was established in the 1960s in order to enhance regional economic co-operation between the participating member countries.

Member states are Burundi, Comoros, D.R Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Uganda, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The slogan used by the organisation is; “400 million Africans UNITED in ONE market”.

COMESA is expected to announce the launch of a customs union between all member states during the coming summit. Eritrea and the Democratic Republic of Congo have each been chosen to present a COMESA project, which is serving as a testimonial during the summit for the planned customs union .

Eritrea is presenting the EU funded COMESA project ASYCUDA, which is an undertaking in cooperation with the Eritrean Customs Department.

ASYCUDA was launched in five African countries in 2006 with a budget of 3 Million Euros. One of the goals of ASYCUDA is to improve the exchange of transit data between borders through web services. 

According to Mr. Haile, the Eritrean Director General of the Customs Department in Eritrea, the project is aiming to modernize the administrative and operational infrastructure of Eritrea’s customs administration, in order to keep up with the global development of computerized systems.

The project was launched three years ago, aiming to computerize the whole Eritrean customs operation in order to enhance statistical processing, accounts management , declaration processing, goods release and report generation.

In 2007 the first implementation of ASYCUDA was finalized at Asmara Airport. In the following year 2008 Asmara Railway customs station, the port of Massawa and the port of Assab customs stations received their ASYCUDA upgrade.

Mr. Haile states, that the initial project scope did not include the post station and the airport passenger terminal in Asmara. However, the system modernization was also implemented at these facilities. Future plans aim to extend the project to Tesseney customs station on the border to Sudan.

The planned COMESA customs union is intended to facilitate trade between the member countries and reduce bureaucratic barriers in order to improve productivity.