Current Edition >> Archives Section >> Leading Stories >> 16-31 Aug 2005

SADC summit aims at free trade by 2008

• Shaun Benton, BUANEWS

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit held in Maseru this week, is seen as an important opportunity for southern African leaders to harness the region's racing economies towards the political imperative of further economic integration of the region.
The heads of state of the region and their foreign ministers, are bringing an added sense of urgency to the process of regional integration, with the target of a free-trade area in 2008.
“For us this is a very important session of the SADC summit because it will have to look at what we need to do to revitalise the implementation of the SADC integration agenda,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad.
The meeting comes at a time when greater peace and stability in the region is the catalyst of much faster economic growth, with notable acceleration being seen in the growth of service industries in Botswana, Namibia and Mauritius, and in the mining sector in Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, and Zambia.
This regional growth has been boosted also by agricultural sector expansion in Mauritius, Mozambique and Zambia and an increase in tourism all over the southern African region.
The phenomenal growth of the Angolan economy – 15% last year with 25% expected this year - on the back of the boom in its offshore oil production is likely to bring pressure on it from SADC to contribute more to the organisation and regional integration.
However, with South Africa still the strongest economic power - its exports to the region, said Mr Pahad, increased from R215 billion in 2001 to R320 billion in 2005, while imports to South Africa from its southern neighbours increased to about R30 billion, from around R24bn in 2001 – it was expected to continue to play a leading role in the region.
“There is still a great discrepancy between the figures [the trade balance between South Africa and its neighbours],” said Pahad, citing reasons such as capacity constraints in SAD countries, lack of beneficiation in their industrial bases and a general neglect of improved access to the South African market.
South Africa, Pahad said, is “not just investing in natural resource extraction but also, because of our commitment to beneficiation, [we] are beginning to invest increasingly in the industrial and service sectors [of the region]”.
With economic growth in higher gear, challenges now faced by the region include reducing poverty and ensuring the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals, aimed at halving extreme poverty and unemployment by 2015.