African Free Trade Zone

The leaders of the three AFTZ trading blocks, COMESA, EAC, and SADC, announced the agreement, with the aim of creating a single free trade zone to be named the African Free Trade Zone, consisting of 26 countries with a GDP of an estimated US$624bn (£382.9bn). It was hoped that the African Free Trade Zone agreement would ease access to markets within the AFTZ zone and end problems due to several of the member countries in the AFTZ belonging to multiple regional groups.

The African Free Trade Zone announced at the EAC-SADC-COMESA Summit (also known the AFTZ Summit and Tripartite Summit) effectively is the realization of a dream more than a hundred years in the making, a trade zone spanning the length of African continent from Cape to Cairo, from North African Egypt all the way to the southernmost tip of Africa in South Africa (Cape Town). The Cape to Cairo dream was envisioned by Cecil Rhodes and other British imperialists in the 1890s and was expressed in different contexts and versions including, but not limited to, the following ideals: Cape to Cairo Road, Cape to Cairo Railway, Cape to Cairo Telegraph, and Cape to Cairo Trade Union.

While other powers, notably Germany and Portugal had colonies or spheres of influence in the Cape to Cairo trade zone contemplated, the primary benefactor of the Cape to Cairo union would have been the Great Britain and British Empire. The biggest difference in the idea of the original Cape to Cairo zone and its current incarnation is that the African Free Trade Zone is the creation of African Countries for the mutual benefit and development of the AFTZ member countries, their peoples and the whole of continent of Africa rather than a trade zone for the benefit of Great Britain. Ultimately, it is hoped the AFTZ would serve as a key building block to African Unity and the realization of a united Africa under the auspices of the African Union.

Another important difference between the original and current ideal is that the AFTZ encompasses an area greater than the one even Cecil Rhodes could have imagine. The original Cape to Cairo idea in Cecil Rhodes' time and now under the AFTZ is a free trade zone spanning the whole continent from Cape Town in South Africa to Cairo in Egypt. Cecil Rhodes' Cape to Cairo would have involved at most a dozen countries. The current rendition of the Cape to Cairo zone actualized by the AFTZ encompasses most of Africa, almost half of the countries (26 out of 54), more than half of the production, trade, population, land mass and resources. If it actualizes its potential and becomes a truly integrated economic union, the AFTZ could actually rival any other economic union with its vast natural resources, huge markets, young population, and great technical know-how (mostly courtesy of SADC in general and the Republic of South Africa in particular).

In addition to eliminating duplicative membership and the problem of member states also participating in other regional economic cooperation schemes and regional political and security cooperation schemes that may compete with or undermine each other, the African Free Trade Zone further aims to strengthen the AFTZ block's bargaining power when negotiating international deals.

Analysts believe that the African Free Trade Zone agreement will help intra-regional trade and boost growth.[3]

The AFTZ is considered a major step in the implementation of the AEC, an organization of African Union states establishing grounds for mutual economic development among the majority of African states. The stated goals of the AEC organization include the creation of free trade areas, customs unions, a single market, a central bank, and a common currency thus establishing an economic and monetary union for the African Union.

The three trade blocs that agreed to and make up the AFTZ, the COMESA, the EAC and the SADC, are already well-established in their own right and cover varying swathes of land, economic systems, political systems and a varied number of peoples (which includes Arabs in the North, multi-racial peoples in the East and South, including significant numbers of Africans of European descent, Asian Africans, including Indians, Chinese and other Asian groups as well as Colored Africans—mixed race Africans numbering millions in South Africa). Many of the membership of the three AFTZ member trade blocks overlap with several countries being a member of more than one of the AFTZ member trade blocks as well as a member of other alliances within and without the three trade blocks.[4]

The EAC-SADC-COMESA Summit is considered historic because for the first time, since the birth of the African Union, several key building blocks of the EAC have met on how to integrate territories and moving towards deepening and widening integration within the overall Abuja Treaty for the establishment of the AEC. Further, for the first time a truly transcontinental union came into being, ranging from the north to the south of the continent. The AFTZ (EAC, COMESA and SADC) currently have a combined population of 527 million and combined GDP of US$625 billion. In size and capacity, the AFTZ rivals most trade blocks.

The SADC is the largest of the AFTZ member trade blocks and covers a population of some 248 million people and a zone whose cumulative GDP is $379bn in 2006.

COMESA was established in 1994 as a replacement for the Preferential Trade Area. It includes 20 nations, with a combined GDP of US$286.7bn in 2006. Among its members are Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda and Sudan.

The EAC, the smallest of the member trade blocks in terms of GDP, had a GDP of US$46.6bn in 2006.

Map showing the member states of the African Free Trade Zone (AFTZ)

The EAC-SADC-COMESA's African Free Trade Zone membership includes the following countries:

•  Angola
•  Botswana
•  Burundi
•  Comoros
•  Djibouti
•  Democratic Republic of Congo
•  Egypt
•  Eritrea
•  Ethiopia
•  Kenya
•  Lesotho
•  Libya
•  Madagascar
•  Malawi
•  Mauritius
•  Mozambique
•  Namibia
•  Rwanda
•  Tanzania
•  Seychelles
•  Swaziland
•  South Africa
•  Sudan
•  Uganda
•  Zambia
•  Zimbabwe