SANF 24 no 18 by SARDC Writers
Southern Africa has the potential to quicken the pace of continental integration in Africa by using its vast mineral resources and favourable investment conditions to industrialise.
Zimbabwe’s Vice President, Dr Constantino Chiwenga discussed this during his opening address to the SADC Investment Forum in Harare on 29 July.
Dr Chiwenga said the 16 member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are well-positioned to lead from the front as Africa moves towards the creation of a continental economic community.
“The SADC region holds significant investment potential. According to SADC reports, its 16 Member States contributed 27.78 percent of Africa’s GDP and attracted 55.1 percent of total Foreign Direct Investment inflows to Africa in 2021,” Dr Chiwenga said in a keynote address to government officials, business leaders, members of parliament and academia from the 16 SADC member states.
The region boasts valuable minerals “offering investment opportunities in extraction, beneficiation and value addition,” he said.
“Recent discoveries of lithium in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe present opportunities for lithium beneficiation and in the long term the manufacturing of lithium batteries, and SADC can be a key player in the manufacturing of electrical vehicles.”
He called on SADC member states to capitalise on these resources and invest in value addition and beneficiation to maximise income, particularly within the newly formed African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
“Let us leverage our comparative advantages such as peace and stability, educated populace, natural resources, favourable climate and integrated transport infrastructure to boost productivity and seize trading opportunities under the AfCFTA,” Dr Chiwenga said.
The AfCFTA, which began implementation in January 2021, seeks to promote trade among African countries against the backdrop of a situation where most African Union member states largely trade outside the continent.
The AfCFTA aims to create a market of 1.2 billion people, with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US$2.5 trillion spread over the 55 member states of the African Union (AU).
SADC is one of the eight Regional Economic Communities (RECs) recognised by the AU as the building blocks of the proposed African Economic Community (AEC).
Other RECs are the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of Central African States, Economic Community of West African States, Community of Sahel-Saharan States, Arab Maghreb Union, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
COMESA, EAC and SADC are in the process of creating a tripartite Free Trade Area spanning 29 countries, covering more than half of the AfCFTA.
The COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) Agreement entered into force on 25 July 2024 following ratification by the requisite number of member states.
The agreement required at least 14 out of the 29 countries to deposit their instruments of ratification before taking effect and that milestone was achieved when Angola deposited its documents on June 25.
Other countries that have ratified the agreement are Botswana, Burundi, Egypt, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The TFTA has a combined population of some 600 million people covering half of the AU member states and a GDP of over US$1 trillion.
Both the AfCFTA and the TTFA are building blocks for the proposed African Economic Community (AEC), which is targeted to be in place by 2063.
They are designed to harmonise the trade regimes of the various RECs and to deepen the cooperation among them in preparation for the eventual launch of the AEC. sardc.net
